Bewildered
by slytherincailin
Summary: AU. Running is an all too familiar sport. Slowly, swiftly, softly, harshly; all that matters in the end is where the running takes us. For one Wizarding hero, the all too familiar sport of running has landed him somewhere far, far away from home and dropped him into a world he has no right existing in. After all... Isn't Harry James Potter supposed to be dead? Slash. Violence. D/s.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One:**

The moon was full.

Coating the trees around him in slivers of silken white and highlighting each stone it landed on, beneath its light Harry believed almost anything could become clean again.

Everything except for him, of course. His was a dirt that did not wash out easily, a blot on his very soul that prevented him from sleeping and giving in to the happiness that wanted to exist around him. He was surrounded by friends almost daily, their smiles and laughter getting him through each day even though the thought of having to climb into bed every night sent a chill through his blood.

The nightmares.

It was the nightmares that haunted his life, clawing at his mind even while he was awake and making forgiveness an impossibility. Though the war had ended, so too had so many innocent lives; lives he himself had been responsible for. Lives of the ones he had loved and lives of the ones he had hated, it didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered now were the faces that peered at him still beneath the darkness of corrupted sleep, their lifeless eyes demanding an answer of the saviour who had not saved them in time.

Cedric. Sirius. Dumbledore. Remus. Tonks. Fred. Lavender. Snape... So many others...

Their faces were never far from the ever-condemning criticism of his own mind. So many twists and turns had his mind taken over the months since the war had ended that, in a warped way, he believed he could have saved them had it not been for tiny, insignificant details.

Green eyes appeared too wide in a small face barely passed the age of eighteen, slender from too many missed meals. His skin itself was a silvery pale beneath the cleansing moonlight, hiding for a moment the scars that littered his arms, his neck, his forehead. Dark hair seemed almost black beneath the bright light and hanging in freshly washed waves to an upturned shirt collar. There seemed little point in cutting it, little point in keeping himself the pinnacle of self-grooming when purple bruises tarnished the pale skin beneath his eyes and his small height drew hardly a glance of interest beyond Hermione's worry that he wasn't eating enough.

Harry's lips flit in a gentle smile. Hermione. How she and Ron could stand his mood swings, he would never know. He could never have wished for more loyal, more brilliant friends than the pair. That they were finally together despite their years of bickering and self-imposed awkwardness only served to brighten his usually dull and drifting mood; seeing their clasped hands and loving smiles bringing a curl to his own lips despite the faint flicker of envy that was sometimes present.

Love was a thing he both longed for and feared like a demon. To depend on someone so wholly as to give them your trust, your heart, your insecurities and your imperfections was a terrifying concept. To offer love to friends, to the Weasley family, to Sirius... That had been an altogether different thing to what had almost transpired between himself and Ginny. Kindness and loyalty where loyalty was due was something he could give to just about anyone willing to prove themselves. To offer up all that he was seemed a burden too big to place on anyone's shoulders. How could he possibly marr another soul so heavily with all that he had been through and expect them to still be capable of loving him? No. He could never do something so selfish. Nobody deserved that.

A howl rent the air; cold and feral and alarmingly close.

Harry snapped his wand from its sheath beneath the snow white of his shirt, black-clad legs bracing where he had been standing in the middle of the forest. Was it a wolf, or a werewolf? The distinction was a vital one. A wolf he could stun, could easily avoid the beast and make his way back to the castle unscathed. A werewolf was a far trickery creature. A werewolf meant possible death and, despite the sadness that often crept against his mind, death was something Harry intended to avoid his final year at Hogwarts. Harry moved, booted feet sounding out heavily against the dry packed floor of the forest. He hadn't wandered too far from the castle, had he?

The howl sounded again, tapering into a ghoulish snarl that had his steps picking up in force. That hadn't sounded like any ordinary wolf.

Harry's eyes stretched into the endless darkness of the Forbidden Forest, the shadows clear and damning against his magically-corrected sight. A lot of good decent vision would be to him if he was caught by whatever creature had silenced the nocturnal sounds of the forest. His thighs protested the movement, had grown lazy in their year spent with no more adventure than wondering what would be for dinner that evening. Harry grasped his wand harder, breathing frantic as he almost stumbled over a series of rocks with a sharp turn to the right.

Had he come that way? Gods, he had been sure he had only taken a ten minute stroll through the dark trees. Hermione would kill him when she found out.

If she found out.

The forest itself seemed to tilt, moonlight spilling over his panicked face as he stumbled through a sudden clearing, definitely unfamiliar. Branches stretched across his limbs for the strangest moment before they fell back into place, wide green eyes taking in the frozen wooden things before he took off running again with a shake of his head. Get a grip, Harry, you've faced werewolves before.

The sharp face of Remus Lupin had him crashing against a solid Oak, hissing when the rough bark dragged the skin from his left arm like a ragged knife, staining his once pristine school shirt with scarlet blood. One year, he pleaded, eyes staring up to catch the snippets of moonlight still filtering through, could he not have one year where he didn't get himself caught up in his own stupidity? Was there no force out there that would prevent him from endangering himself?

"Please..." he gasped, the howl behind him becoming an all too hungry sound.

###

The dark haired Order member groaned, stretching a kink from his back as he stood from the tree stump he had been sitting on for the past half an hour.

"I dunno about you, Sirius, but I'm about ready to call it a night."

Sirius Black glanced up at his friend, dark eyes brooding before they switched back to the pleasantly silent forest spread out before them. A sigh fell from his lips, one hand dragging through his dark curls as he, himself, stood with a cracking yawn. His body was that of an older man, though one in such pristine condition, one would be hard-pushed to find fault in it due to age alone. He kicked the pile of broken debris scattered about his feet with a roll of his eyes. "Someone sent us on a wild goose chase."

James Potter frowned, hazel eyes glinting behind the heavy frames he wore. "Not bloody likely," he growled, fitting his wand back into the holder on his arm before turning his back on the once aptly-named Forbidden Forest. It hadn't been known as such in nearly five years, its once proud inhabitants and terrifying legends long since fled after the battle of Hogwarts had wiped out half the ancient trees with fiend fire. That they had saved even half of the forest was a miracle in itself and had cost Dumbledore his last stand. It wasn't likely they would find anything living in its dark depths, but still, it was their duty to be certain.

"You know well we were ear-marked for this journey." James' voice cut across the memories dwelling in Sirius' eyes, the auror straightening his robes as he cast one last sorrowful glance at the rubble the ancient castle had been reduced to. It had seemed an unbearable sin to tear down what remained of the magical walls to rebuild something afresh. James remembered the day it was decided that the new school would be built elsewhere; Hogwarts remaining forever more as nothing but a heartbreaking reminder of the lives lost. A devastating declaration of war.

Sirius growled, sliding his own wand into his pocket as he shouldered the bag strewn across the damp grass. "I know, routine check to make sure no werewolf clans are trying to settle again. Spare me the Minister's lecture on maintaining Wizarding culture and preserving the landscape, James, the old fart has it damn well drilled into my skull."

James snorted a laugh despite his clouded memories, hazel eyes twinkling. "Maybe if you didn't try and add your own flare to the arurors after years of strict training, he'd go easier on you, Padfoot. You bring it on yourself, like Lily says."

"Oooh, Lily, flower of my heart," Sirius dodged the hex thrown in his direction, cackling, "You know, I'll never understand how a woman like that settled for an ass like you, Prongs. Twenty-six years bonded and she still hasn't left you. It's the Imperious, isn't it, go on you can tell me!"

"Blast it, hold still you mongrel so that I can do some damage to your face," James snarled, lips forming a feral smile as Sirius wrapped an arm around him in a gesture of brotherhood, his white teeth flashing in a handsome smirk. Sirius was Sirius regardless of whether that lost him friendships or grated on people's nerves. It was one of the things James admired about his old friend, to remain so stoically... Himself. James sighed.

"She's invited you and Remus for dinner during the week." James bent to grab the discarded bag, shaking it free of dust, "it makes her happy to have a house filled with noise, she says that's how it should have been if not for... Well," James cut off with a cough, slinging the bag over Sirius' shoulder, "will you come?"

"Don't we always, my friend?" Sirius smiled warmly, only for a sudden blur of movement against the darkened forest to have him spinning back, his dark eyes narrowed. "Did you see that?"

James turned, a questioning hum on his lips, just in time to see a flicker of light before something burst through the forest opening. His wand was raised in an instant, red light flashing as he sent a stunning spell at whatever creature had come from within. There was a cry of pain, distinctly human and non-threatening, before the body crumpled to the ground and silence weighed heavy on the pair left standing.

"One of ours?" Sirius questioned, wand raised as the duo moved cautiously closer, his brow drawing down in confusion when they were close enough to see that this was the body of a boy, not a man or a werewolf. James cursed beside him, hazel eyes frantic as he pocketed his wand and pushed the youth onto his back, grimacing at the protruding bones beneath his fingers that let him know how long it had been since the kid had had a decent meal.

"He looks kinda familiar." James glanced up at his friend's comment, eyes searching the youth's face. A slender face, delicate and pale from lack of sleep. His cupid-bow lips were parted as he took in breath after frantic breath, as though, even unconscious he was not at peace. His midnight dark hair was long for a male, curling and soft. There was something familiar there, without a doubt, in the boy's perked nose and gentle chin. James shook his head.

"I don't know him. We'd best take him back to Headquarters rather than the Ministry though. Those vultures would throw him in an interrogation cell before the boy's even seen a decent meal and from the looks of him, he needs one." Sirius murmured his agreement. The Order was a place anyone could feel at ease, even if the Black house itself was one in desperate need of a coat of yellow paint. Wherever the boy had come from and whatever he had been doing wandering a forest alone at night, all of it could wait for now.

###

Harry woke with a snarl, flinging himself from a bed he was not familiar with even as the scent of something that was not Hogwarts gathered in his senses. The sheets now strewn along the floor were a midnight blue, the room his eyes flickered across a dull shade of pale brown. Unfamiliar.

A sudden movement had him pivoting, his hand leaping for his wand, only to grasp air. Harry let loose a strangled sigh, clutching at his forearm that held no wand holder but had instead been bandaged. The white bindings had him momentarily frozen, his mouth twisting in a grimace as he tried to calm his breathing.

"Hey, kid, you're alright. You're safe. Here, I'll give you your wand if you promise not to hex me?"

Harry staggered to face that voice, green eyes blown wide in his head and his mouth popping open as the image of Nymphadora Tonks sitting on a chair beside the wall filtered across his brain. But, of course, that couldn't be right. Tonks could not be sitting in this unfamiliar room with him with her vibrant pink hair and her cheeky smile, Harry's wand swinging in her hand like a toy. No, no, that wasn't right at all. Unless... Unless he had been...

"Am I dead?"

Tonks' smile melted, her brow drawing down in a line of worry as the kid suddenly swayed, catching himself on the railing of the bed as he stared at her like he had seen a ghost. The kid wasn't that sick, was he? Severus had poured as many nutrition potions down the boy's throat as he could without making him sick, how was it he was still dizzy? Tonks rose slowly, frowning as the boy became a statue, his white skin flushing green as he watched her get up and hold up her hands.

"Relax, kid. Why don't you get back into bed and I'll let Sirius know you're awake and then we'll have someone take a look at you, okay?"

A whine left the boy's throat as she spoke, his hands reaching up to drag at his black curls as though something pained him. Tonks watched him sob dryly, horrified, before stumbling from the bedroom with a gentle command to stay put.

Harry sank against the bedframe, back to the metal railing as he tugged on a fistful of hair, trying to make sense of exactly what was happening. Had he not been at Hogwarts? Fleeing from a bloody werewolf? Where the hell had he ended up and why the hell was this place taunting him with dead people. This wasn't right... No... This wasn't right...

"Hey Champ."

Harry's hands rose to his face, pale hands hiding the grimace he could no longer control as he turned to stare at the man now crouched beside him. Hazel eyes framed by dark glasses smiled back at him, the man's older face smiling softly as he brushed a wayward strand of messy brown hair from his own forehead. Harry's heart stilled inside his chest, his hands falling from his face to land in his lap as his chest heaved one broken sob.

"Dad?"

###

"That's not possible."

James' smile had vanished, his face an emotionless mask as he stared down at the small boy crouched behind his bed like he was hiding from invisible monsters. The auror's heart bled for him, it really did. No child should have to live life so paranoid, so confused. When those green eyes glistening with unshed tears had turned on him and that heartbroken voice called out to him, though, James had felt his insides freeze.

"Not possible..." he whispered, hazel eyes suddenly wide behind his lenses as the small male stared up at him hopelessly, Lily's eyes. Lily's chin. Lily's distressed sobbing as the boy drew away suddenly, his dark hair once again clutched in pale hands as he bit his lips on a grimace. That was his mess of dark hair on this stranger's head, James realised; his stubborn jaw and his slender nose. The only physical things he had known his son had inherited from him. His son.

"What's your name?" James demanded suddenly, pulling the boy's hand from his hair with more force than necessary. The boy glared at him, one moment furious and the next, devastated. Every emotion was on show in those emerald eyes in a way they never were with Lily. The boy grabbed his arm back, his breath leaving him in a sigh and his eyes sliding shut almost as if he was preparing himself for something inevitable.

"Harry. My name is Harry Potter."

James fell back against the floorboards, casting one last traumatised glance at the boy who claimed to be his son, before shaking his head. "This isn't possible."

"Yeah, I've gathered that, thanks!" The boy spat suddenly, drawing his knees to his chest and glaring at James over the top of them. "Unless you haven't noticed, you're supposed to be dead!"

That threw James for a loop. He frowned, glancing around the room until his eyes landed on Tonks' wide-eyed face. He cleared his throat, shaking his head to clear it as he rose to his feet. Clearly, there was something both of them were missing here and he needed to be rational. So his son was... Alive... He could come to terms later. He needed to breathe. He needed to... To let someone take over for a minute.

"Would you go find someone his own age, Tonks, and have them show him to the kitchen for some food or something. A few of the younger Order members are usually floating around in the attic with the bat. Could you just... Take him... Just for a second. I need to find Sirius and Remus."

Tonks was already nodding, her brown eyes melting to green as she turned to face the boy still hunched in on himself behind the bed. James cast him one last desperate look, terrified by the grief of loss that was attacking his mind once more, like new; and yet, at the same time trying to deal with a baffling amount of vicious excitement. His son. His son was alive.

###

They were in Grimmauld place. Harry almost rolled his eyes for not recognising the house sooner. As soon as Tonks lead him towards the creaking set of stairs, he recognised it. Granted, he had never seen it so... bright and airy, but it still held the abject misery that a few new windows and open curtains simply weren't going to fix.

"Sooo... Harry... Wanna tell me where you came out of? I mean, I know they found you at the forest but that place has been abandoned for years." Tonks eyed him warily, prodding him with the end of his own wand before handing it back with a grin, "you're not some strange new creature are you? You really are just a wizard?"

As surreal as the conversation was, Harry couldn't prevent the small smile across his lips as he glanced up at Tonks. "I think so. I mean, I am a wizard, yes, not a werewolf or a vampire or anything... I was just taking a walk, I don't usually go so far from the school."

"The school?" Tonks stopped, her wand paused where she had begun to call down the stairs leading to the attic.

Harry nodded, green eyes flitting about the shadowy corridor. "Yeah, you know, Hogwarts? McGonagall's gonna kill me when she's realised I've gotten myself messed up in whatever the hell this all is. I mean... I wasn't lying, my father really is dead..." Harry puffed out his cheeks, his head spinning as Tonks placed a steady hand on his shoulder.

"One step at a time, kid. Go on up and meet some of the gang. James was right, they usually make a nest up there to escape the drama of home. Poor sods if they feel more comfortable here than with their parents." She shivered, "this place gives me the creeps."

Harry smiled again, chuckling. One step at a time. Right. He could do this. He reached out to grab the ladder, pulling himself up with ease and sliding through the opening silently. They were around his age, right? That could mean Hermione and Ron were here... So this was a strange world he had dropped himself into, by the looks of things. He could get on with those two in any universe, right? What could have possibly changed or been messed around with that would end in him screwing up a simple friendship? Although... Lots of things if his walking and talking and breathing father was anything to go by... Harry stood in the darkly lit room, the open space cluttered with box upon box and abandoned furniture piled almost to the ceiling. He could safely admit that he was far from home now. Merlin but how did he get himself into these messes.

"If you're trying to be sneaky, you aren't doing a good job. I can smell you."

The voice, dark and seductive with a roll of genuine humour sounded... almost familiar. Harry darted forward around a stack of wooden crates, for the moment uncaring that he was about to meet brand new people wearing only a blood stained shirt and his school trousers. That voice, he knew that voice...

The group seated around the corner drew him up short, his frowning face giving way to confusion. One face he simply did not recognise. Male and blonde and with such a curious glint to his dark eyes that Harry ripped his eyes from him before they could even settle. The lumbering hulk beside him could have been none other than Gregory Goyle, the boy's face as unfortunate in this new world as it had been in the last, though his fat seemed to have been replaced by a wall of muscle. Harry blinked at them, twisting to see more.

And there was Ron, his lanky form lounged against an old wicker chair and a female who was not Hermione seated between his parted thighs. He quirked an eyebrow at Harry, his long arms winding around the brunette in front of him.

"You look like you've been through hell, mate, you new to the Order?"

His voice was just the same, his tone concerned and mildly amused as Harry watched him pull the giggling brunette in for a cuddle, her laughter pitchy and lilting and all too familiar. Despite the sweet smile on her face and the gentle curl to her once straight, dark hair; Pansy Parkinson was a face Harry would never forget. She looked at him now with a fraction of curiosity in his brown eyes that was marred only by her contempt at his appearance.

"Oh, sweetheart. Do you enjoy dressing in rags or were Mummy and Daddy too poor to care what you looked like?"

Harry snarled, drawing his wand out and pointing it at a suddenly wide-eyed Pansy. The brunette stood with a growl, "stand down," she shrieked, glaring at him, "Merlin, touchy subject, alright. I apologise, consider it taboo now put down your damned weapon, we do not threaten others in this house."

Harry's arm dropped, his breath catching in his chest. Had the fierce woman just offered a truce and an apology to him? Had the girl who had once offered him up to Voldemort just preached peace? Was she a member of the Order? Gods, did the Order even stand for the same thing here? He had no idea what was going on... what to expect. Harry's scowl fell to nothing, his lips quivering suddenly in a way that had Parkinson stalking towards him slowly as though he were a deer about to bolt.

Harry felt his eyes cloud, his wounded arm lifting to scrub a hand across his face. It should be Hermione offering him that look of guarded sympathy, that innate worry that came with a maternal instinct. It should be her and Ron cuddled at Hogwarts glaring at him as he described how he had just escaped a mauling from a feral werewolf. It should not be this... strange and confusing reality that was enfolding before his eyes; that wiped away the deaths of his loved ones as though they had never happened, as though the trauma and pain in him now had no right to even exist. This wasn't right... Gods, this wasn't right...

"Ah, Pans... You've scared the poor boy half to death."

That voice spilled over Parkinson's gentle murmurings, a pale hand darting out to knock the woman back a few feet. The body that followed was one that could have been a new nightmare all in itself. Sleek and strong and decked in a silk shirt and stiff trousers of black that only served to enhance his snowy white skin. The torso twisted, long legs braced against the old floorboards as wings snapped free of their confinement against the man's spine; jet-black and scaled like a dragon's.

"Oh dear," that familiar voice cooed as Harry dragged what he was certain were huge eyes up that tall body, taller even than the man had been back at Hogwarts. Harry felt his stomach flip horrifically, what little contents it held threatening to rise. A pale, pointed face edged ever closer, staring down at him from beneath a curtain of white-blonde hair that fell to broad shoulders. Pale lips quirked in a familiar smirk that had Harry's blood boiling as he locked gazes with, not the pale silver he had expected, but a deep blood red. Draco's lips split in a genuine smile, the barest point of sharp teeth scraping against his bottom lip.

"Never seen a vampire before, little boy?"

###

**A/N: Sooo... I wrote this at one o clock last night while also attempting to watch South Park and I have been squinting at it all day since I woke up. I am unsure if I like it... I am unsure if people will like it but hey, it deserves a test run. If people take an interest and would like a follow up to this... bizarre intro then it will become a new story ^^ So, feedback is a must even by way of following if you're unable to review and we'll see where this goes haha. Happy readings ^^ **


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

In hindsight, pulling a wand on a fully matured Vampire probably wasn't the cleverest of moves Harry had ever tried.

He groaned, back throbbing where he lay against the side of the attic floor stilted still with rafters. His wand was grasped tightly in the pale fingers of Draco Malfoy, a man who wore such a grimace of discomfort on his face that Harry almost felt bad for forcing his hand.

And that was just... Completely mad.

Draco Malfoy; his school rival and a man he had only begun to come to terms with in his own reality, was now a creature of the night and had just disarmed him and sent him flying across the room to collide with the uneven floor. Not only would such an... appearance by disconcerting, but the fact that Draco Malfoy had just bested him in combat in the blink of an eye it had taken Harry to jab his wand into the man's neck was nerve-wracking. Malfoy had never beaten him at anything. Not only those small facts though; such an action as defeating Harry Potter would have had the previous Draco Malfoy laughing aloud with glee and that trademark smirk plastered across his smug face.

This Malfoy was frowning.

Not only frowning, but grimacing, such a human gesture that looked as unsettling on the blonde's aristocratic face as it did on a vampire with scarlet eyes. He sighed, stowing Harry's wand away in the band of his pants before the soft sound of boots approaching had the green eyed wizard scrambling against the floor to stand and defend himself.

Harry struggled to his feet, hands raised before him as though he expected some vicious blow and his green eyes narrowed on the blonde vampire.

"Don't touch me!"

Malfoy rolled his eyes, an almost comical gesture were it not for their blood-thirsty tint. "Alright," his voice was the same smooth drawl it had always been, though with a degree of emotion that set Harry on edge, "clearly, we have a child with some deep-rooted hate of dark creatures and a tendency to attack before he speaks. Not very gracious traits, little one, and most certainly not acceptable at the Order. Who was it that recruited you? If you can call it that... I'd go so far as to call it kidnapping."

Harry bared his teeth at the round of laughter that comment called up from the rest of the group. A hatred of dark creatures? Hell no, he had adored Remus. What he did have was a well-deserved hate of snotty little rich boys who thought they owned the place and revelled in the misery of others. "I'm not much younger than you! And for your information, I knew a werewolf once and he was my best friend."

"A werewolf? Well then, there is hope for you yet." Draco smiled, the feature so shockingly unexpected and pleasant on the blonde's sharp features that Harry dropped his fighting stance and felt his head tilt in confusion. Draco stalked from his front to his back, a slow circle as his blood-red eyes trailed over Harry's form, "though I hardly think you're more than fifteen. That's a big step down from twenty-four, little one."

"Twenty-four?" Harry felt his stomach roll with unease, his green eyes snapping up to glance at Draco's face before he pulled away from the intensity there, focusing instead on the other four occupants of the attic. Now that he really thought about it, they did seem in some strange respect a tad older than his own schoolmates had been. Ron had lost some of the lankiness to his gangly frame, more toned and a degree broader. Even Pansy's curious face had lost a roundness that Harry had not even realised was there on the old Pansy.

"Yes, twenty-four," the only female grinned up at him, tucking her feet beneath her where she sat on the floor by Ron's stretched-out legs, "though if you were aiming for lower, I am flattered, sweetheart." She watched him cast a nervous glance at Draco, obviously on edge; though what the vampire had done beyond call him a kid, Pansy did not know. He was young, there was no denying that, younger than they ever recruited Order members. His bandaged arm and the ribs visible beneath that flimsy white shirt spoke of neglect and damage even with his green eyes guarded. Pansy suspected one decent legilimens would have spilled every one of the fragile creature's little secrets and by the way his body guarded each step he took, it was obvious that he had secrets.

"I'm eighteen," he said suddenly, frowning at Draco's snort of disbelief before crossing his arms before him like a small child about to be dealt a punishment. "Look, I'm a little out of my depth here... I don't know what the hell is going on or if I'm dreaming or knocked my head on a rock in that forest but I'm starving."

"Clearly." Was Draco's dry roll, his red eyes slanting on the boy's slender form. The blonde almost regretted pushing him so hard, though he would have reacted in such a way to anyone who had threatened his friends or himself. Even as a human, he had never been one to deal well with threats, magical or not. The blonde straightened, tucking his wings comfortably against his back before nodding his head in the direction the boy had come from, one pale hand rising to beckon the group forward.

"Come on, then, it wouldn't do to have you keel over under our watch."

###

"So, what's your name then? And why is it you reckon you're dreaming?"

Ron waited until the bowl of stew Pansy had heated and set before the younger boy was half empty, his hands braced on his chin before asking the question. There was something oddly familiar about the boy that had Ron frowning from his seat beside Greg, the larger man's head bowed over a bowl of his own. He didn't recall the youth from Hogwarts, though there was a six year age gap and the kid would have only been starting out by the time they left. Hell, he would have still been attending at the time of the battle; maybe that's why the kid was so twitchy whenever Draco stalked about the room or Tommy laughed too loud at something Pansy had said. Sure, the students had been hidden by McGonagall at the time, but that didn't mean to say that the kid might have seen something traumatic or gotten knocked about in the run from the Great Hall to the Dungeons and the safe room.

Green eyes focused on him, wary and watching even though his body seemed to have relaxed in the wooden chair. He pushed his bowl away with a sigh, running one hand through his wayward curls as he rolled his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

"My name's Harry."

"Harry." Pansy sighed from where she leaned against the counter, one jean-clad hip braced against the edge. "I was expecting something exotic and you give me 'Harry'." She watched the boy discolour, his pale cheeks flushing pink enough to warrant a leering stare from Draco before the blonde picked up the discarded bowl and stood to dump it in the sink. Harry followed his movements like it was second nature, his gaze not settling on Pansy again until Draco had braced himself against the windowsill and was watching the world outside illuminated only by the stars.

"Well, sorry, but it's just Harry." The dark haired youth brought his hand up to tug at his unkempt hair, trying to still the migraine that was swiftly swimming behind his eyes. This was surreal. Everything that was panning out was evidence of something not-right and yet these people were carrying on as normal and the world was still spinning and the soup still tasted like soup and Merlin, what was he going to do? How could he get himself out of a mess he hadn't even consciously created? What the hell had happened in those stupid woods that had led him running into an alternate world where nobody knew him but his dead father?

His father. Gods, he had a father. James Potter was alive and maybe that meant his mother... Oh, and Sirius too if Tonks' word was anything to go by. Harry groaned, forcing his hands against eyes that were rapidly filling with tears. What was he going to do? How could he just pretend everything was alright? What was he going to do? What was he going to do...

Cool fingers suddenly and sharply gripping the back of his neck had Harry's panicked breathing halting in its tracks, his mouth open as his nape was pinched gently, forcing his hands to drop to his sides.

"Panic gets us nowhere, little one."

The voice was intended for his ears alone, those fingers gripping his skin once more as a shiver raced through him, before sliding away. Harry sat, agape, wide eyes pinned on Malfoy as the blonde slinked from beside him and dropped his tall body into a chair tucked against a wall. Repulsed, his mind supplied the sudden blank slate Malfoy's fingers had caused within his head, he should be repulsed. He should shout out and rebel such treatment. He wasn't a child and he wasn't a pet to be trained into cooperating. How dare Malfoy touch him?

He opened his lips to voice such repulsion, only for an almost imperceptible shake of the blonde vampire's head to clamp his lips shut once more and have him turning his eyes down. Repulsion was perhaps the furthest thing from his mind. Confusion, yes, without a doubt. He was very confused, but repulsed by the action?

Harry jumped as the door to the kitchen was flung open, Pansy shrieking where she had been silently studying the exchange between her friend and the stranger. She blinked furious eyes at the bang the sudden entrance had caused, snarling when the rumpled figure of Sirius Black filled the doorway.

"Trust it to you, Black, to make such an unnecessary bloody entrance."

The auror ignored her, his black eyes wide as the sudden sound of steps on the staircase sounded in time with the voice of James Potter.

"Damn it all, Sirius, get back here! We don't even know if it's really him! It could be a trick!"

Sirius growled, propelling himself into the kitchen before James could swipe him backwards, snapping out his wand in a playful manner when James skidded in behind him, his own wand raised. "Well, I'll damn well see if it's a trick won't I? As if I wouldn't know my own Godson!" The dark haired wizard huffed as he straightened his robes, face smiling as he turned towards the table. His eyes landed on the boy at the end, small and eclipsed by the taller forms of Ron and Tommy on either side of him. His eyes were huge in his head, all but popping from his skull as he stared back and forth between the two new occupants of the room. He was young, too young to be the Harry Potter of this world; but there was no mistaking that face. By Merlin, he knew the boy had been familiar.

"Harry."

The sound of his name on the lips of a man long dead had Harry jerking back, his hands braced against the table. Sirius Black, a man Harry had blamed himself for the death of, stood before him in brilliant scarlet robes, his face younger and healthier than Harry had ever known it to be and his black hair pulled back in an elegant ponytail. His body moved before his mind could even recognise what was happening, his legs striding forward until he had thrown his arms around the frozen man before him and buried his face in the wizard's chest. "Sirius."

Stiff arms came around him, unsure and timid, until a hand was patting his back and a soothing shush against the crown of his head had Harry sobbing against this stranger's chest. This was Sirius... No matter that this world was not his own and the people in it were strange and unnerving, this was his Sirius. This was the man who had offered him a home when he hadn't even sorted a home for himself, the man who had begged for the right to raise him when his parents had died and who had given his life to protect him. This was Sirius.

Sirius glanced at his friend helplessly, arms around the young boy that clung to him as though he was a lifeline. Shouldn't this have been the lad's reaction to his father, not his Godfather? James was watching them, his hands clutched in the material of his robes as if to stop himself from reaching out. He shared a grim glance with Sirius' dark eyes, his head tilting in a nod. They needed to understand just what it was that was happening. Dimension jumping was no joking matter, nor was it something to take lightly. If this was Harry Potter from another world than they needed to understand just why he had been brought to their one, and if there would ever be a possibility of returning him home. James frowned as he watched Sirius lead the boy through to the living room, the younger members trailing behind them with curiosity and intrigue in their eyes. Judging by the emotional and physically state of his... son, James wasn't sure whether he even wanted to send the boy back home.

###

"So you were at Hogwarts? And it's still a school in your world?"

Harry turned to face the blonde boy he hadn't known from the group of younger Order members, his stomach twisting as he finished his story of how he had been repeating his final year in Hogwarts due to the war and had wandered off alone into the forest and gotten chased by the wolf. He had no real answer as to why he had emerged into their Hogwarts and not his own beyond cursing himself for getting into another stupid mess.

"Of course it's still a school. They rebuilt it a bit but it's still the same old Hogwarts. McGonagall made an incredible job of it and because of so many of us fighting in the war and on different sides, we had to return to retake our exams."

"You fought in the war?" Ron breathed, blue eyes huge and for a moment, Harry smiled, reminded of his own Ron Weasley. He twisted his legs beneath him where he sat on the couch beside Pansy, her presence almost comforting as she murmured reprimands at him for being alone outside. Bizarre though it was to his senses, this Pansy was clearly a better person than her counterpart.

"We all did." Harry's gaze narrowed, "I take it there was a war here too, then?"

Sirius sighed from the chair to Harry's right, his eyes flicking to James where the man watched Harry with unblinking eyes. "Five years ago, yes," he grimaced, "and before that. I don't suppose you know who I'm referring to when I say You-Know-Who?"

"Voldemort." Harry deadpanned, drawing a hiss form the dark form of Draco Malfoy where the vampire stood frozen against the doorway, his arms crossed. Harry scowled at him, nose wrinkling. "You can't still be afraid to say his name, can you? He's been dead for a year."

"Five years here," Sirius supplied with his own grimace, taking in Harry's bored expression with a degree of trepidation. "When he first rose to power, it was with expectations to take over the Wizarding World and make it more pure. He turned good men with threats of death to their children, to their families. He twisted them to little more than slaves for his doing and will. It wasn't until he had expanded to the point of almost tearing down the ministry that he made one fatal mistake. He discovered one of his own men had turned on him and was playing the part of the spy and as revenge, he tried to kill that man's wife and son. But it backfired. He was the one left destroyed and we were given the Boy Who Lived."

Harry was nodding slowly, face a mask. Though it was familiar, certain details and the extent of Voldemort's reign had been different in this world. It seemed his own life had carried out the same though. Destined in every reality to be nothing more or less than the Boy Who Lived. He almost sighed, maybe that would explain why there seemed to be no Harry in this world and why his father was staring at him as though he expected him to vanish away. Had his counterpart been killed? Maybe his mother was still dead then... Old as the pain of his mother's death was, the thought was one that created an ache in his chest.

"Yes, yes" Harry said, "I know all that. A mother's sacrifice, Voldemort's destruction and him coming back to life. That was when we learned about the Horcruxes, when he began to grow in strength. Dumbledore told me and we had to find them so that he could be killed for once and for all. And he was."

James became animated in his seat, his face blinking into a scowl. "Your Dumbledore had children retrieve the Horcruxes? You could have been killed! Even having a skilled team of aurors retrieve and finish them lost us several of our men. Not to mention the fact that Neville gave up his own life to finally put an end to it. What sort of world did you live in that children were given tasks of war and ordered to fight?"

Harry stared at his father, something dropping in his stomach that sent cold throughout his limbs. "Neville?"

"Yes, Neville Longbottom," James sighed, shaking his head sadly, "the kid was a bloody hero. As soon as he realised the final Horcrux was living inside of him, he finished it so that we would have a chance to defeat You-Know-Who. He took his own life so that that madman would be mortal. Hogwarts was destroyed with the amount of magic created during the battle. It was never rebuilt. That..." James frowned suddenly, his lips pursing in thought, "that didn't happen in your world? Neville didn't take his own life?" The thought was one that sat uneasily with the people in the room, the idea that a piece of Voldemort was still existing in someone, small as that piece may be.

Harry was frozen, skin paling as he picked at the loose strands of his ripped shirt, stomach rolling. "No," he whispered, shaking his head, "no, Neville didn't have to kill himself. The Boy Who Lived found out that he was a Horcrux and went to meet Voldemort by himself. He knew he was going to die, but it almost didn't matter. So many others had died around him and for him and it just seemed... Fair, you know? That he would finally be going and he could save them with one easy sacrifice. He was petrified, though."

"Harry?"

Harry sniffed, coaxing a hand through his thick hair to tug at the strands gently. "And Voldemort killed him, and in doing so destroyed the piece of his own soul that was living inside the boy. And then, that boy had a choice to make. He could either go on the quiet path to death with those who had given their lives to help him and protect him, or he could pick the harder path and continue to live, and finish what Voldemort had started. Finish the war." Harry sighed, glancing up to catch his father's eye.

"I'm the Boy Who Lived. I killed Voldemort."

###

"You..." James' whispered word fell into the heavy silence, eyes pinned on the small boy in front of him that looked so lost in his own skin. This was the Boy Who Lived. His son had been the wizard to vanquish Voldemort, to kill another human being. His son had been the person with Voldemort's soul living within him. Even now, James remembered the nightmares Neville had suffered through, had almost been driven mad by. His son... His son...

James groaned, his mouth turning down. "Your parents were the ones who died while you were a baby. Lily and myself... We were gone..." The thought was one that chilled him to the core, not so much as knowing that his counterpart was dead but realising that this boy had never known his own mother and father.

Harry came to himself with a short shake of his head, his eyes softening. "Yeah, my parents died when I was little. I lived with the Dursley's." A shudder wracked the boy's framed, nose wrinkling in disgust. "It was not the prettiest of childhoods."

James' temper snapped, his body springing from the couch to pace the room and drawing a growl from Draco at the sudden movement. "Petunia and Vernon!" he hissed, "you were sent to Petunia and Vernon? Why the hell not Sirius? Or Remus? I would never have let any child of mine be sent to those magic-hating muggles!"

"Well, Sirius was in Azkaban and Remus was nowhere to be found. I didn't meet them until I was thirteen and werewolves weren't allowed adopt children and Sirius was still a wanted man so I couldn't go stay with him." The aghast sound that fell from his Godfather's lips was countered only by Pansy's snort of genuine amusement and Harry groaned, lifting his hands to rub at his face viciously. "Look, clearly, whoever my counterpart is here has led a very different life to the one I've had. Why don't I start from the beginning?"

James was watching him, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his robe as if he didn't quite know what to do with them. Harry eyed him until he had sat back down, his hazel eyes dark behind his frames. "Your... counterpart. My son is dead."

He had been afraid of that. Harry grimaced, his eyes flitting between the man he had dreamed of speaking to and living with ever since he had seen his smiling face in the Mirror of Erised. This was his father for Merlin's sake. This was the man who possessed the same blood, the same genes, the same dreadful hair as himself; even if he had had a Harry of his own, this was his dad. How could the man feel like a stranger to him... How could he have been happier to see his Godfather alive and well than he had been with his own family?

"How did he die?"

There was no tension, no abrupt silence like the kind that would follow a traumatic death; merely a sigh from Sirius and a patient smile filled with a world of sorrow from James. "Pneumonia." The hazel eyed man supplied, pulling off his glasses to wipe the lenses clear on his robes, his legs stretching out to cross at the ankles. "He was very sickly as a boy, born too early. Harry was prone to bouts of illness, never took to cold weather well and always had to be inside when the snow was highest. One year, some time after his eight birthday, he fell ill. Of course, it was almost a pattern at this point. He would take a turn for the worse, need extra care, and then he'd be back on his feet come Spring ready to take on the world. So we tucked him in, Lily and I, and we said goodnight and we kissed his forehead and..."

The man's voice was a breath, heard only for the sombre silence the younger wizards and witch gave out of respect. As he trailed into nothing, Sirius reached across the arm rest to take a firm grip of the man's shoulder, baring a sad smile when his friend glanced up at him. "And he never woke up." Sirius finished, turning dark eyes on where Harry sat curled into the couch. "It was his time and he went peacefully, before anything bad in the world could touch him or taint him. He was a good boy." There was an answering murmur from James as he straightened with a sigh, turning to the stranger who bore his son's face and name with a smile.

His Harry had been a good boy. He had been a sweet child with no world experience and loving parents and an army of friends, including three of the boys sat around him now. His son had died a child and would forever remain that way in James' memories, innocent. The boy that sat across from him now was an altogether different person. This was his Harry, undoubtedly. He could never deny the likeness in their features and the pale wizard's strong resemblance to his Lily; this was the son of James Potter and Lily Evans. The life he had led, though, had not been a happy one.

"Will you tell us your story, Harry?"

The stranger grinned at him and James saw a flicker of the sweet faced child that had been his own son. "It's kinda a long story, kind of really long and I got myself into enough trouble to warrant an eternity of groundings." He chuckled suddenly, the sound breaking the fragile atmosphere and drawing a grin from Sirius.

"A rule breaker, eh? Following proudly in his father's footsteps! Out with it, lad. Right now we've got nothing but time."

###

**A/N: Oki so we have interest ^^Awesome, then on with the show haha. So this story is going with the flow, whatever plot develops as I write we'll see as it goes on but that's how most of my stories go so tis all good haha thank you to everyone who has reviewed or followed or favourited ^^ Happy readings**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**

Harry stretched his legs out in front of him, his two hands settling on his stomach as he cast dark green eyes up towards the ceiling. Where to start...? The beginning would have been an obvious answer, if Harry could find it within himself to talk about his parent's deaths with his very living father sitting not three feet across from him. He blinked as he allowed his eyes to follow the intricate moulding of the front room ceiling. Had that been there in the old Grimmauld place? Harry wasn't so sure... He puffed out a breath in a loud sigh.

"So, I grew up with muggles. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were... adverse to magic to say the least. The day I found out I was a wizard and began to understand why they hated me so much was on my eleventh birthday when Hagrid came to give me my Hogwarts letter." He held up one hand at the sound of his father's outraged exclamation, his lips quirking in the corners. If that offended him, James Potter was in for a roller-coaster of emotions. "No interruptions, or I'll never get to finish the story." Harry chuckled, his eyes darting back down to see the elder Potter lean back against the couch he now shared with Ron and the unknown blonde; Gregory Goyle a mountain of a man on the stool beside them. The sight was enough to have Harry shaking his head at the strangeness of it all.

"Hagrid came to give me my letter because my aunt and uncle were hiding me from the Wizarding World. They wanted nothing to do with it. Needless to say, they did not get their way and I went to Hogwarts where I met my first friend. Ronald Weasley." The redhead perked, his lips splitting into a smile not unlike the ones Ron had so often cast Harry in the past. Harry grinned back at him.

"We became friends with a girl called Hermione, a muggle-born. Without the two of them, I would never have made it through my first year. At Halloween, Hermione was cornered by a troll in the bathroom and Ron and I helped knock it unconscious, not only that but it was the first year that I came face to face with Voldemort. He was... possessing one of the school professors, a man named Ouirrel. Because of the sacrifice my mother had given me by dying for me, the man couldn't touch me without crumbling to nothing. Maybe it was just dumb luck that I survived, really...

"Anyway, in second year the three of us were confronted with the Heir of Slytherin. In the end, that too turned out to be Voldemort possessing one of the younger girls through the use of a diary Lucius had slipped into her cauldron. He very nearly killed her too. I destroyed the first Horcrux without even knowing it with a fang that had come from the basilisk living in the chamber beneath the school. Come to think of it, I would have died then too if Fawkes hadn't rescued me. I'm not sure whether to count myself lucky or unlucky." Harry chuckled, the sound dying down when he met James' horrified gaze and averted his eyes with a sigh. Malfoy was watching him with a slant to his blood red eyes, his mouth a grim line and his face blank as he lounged against the wall closest the door. Merlin, Harry had almost forgotten he was in the room, he was so bloody still. He coughed, dragging his eyes away to land on Sirius.

"Third year was when I met you. I thought you were going to kill me," Harry grinned at the scowl on his Godfather's face, "I only found out through sheer stubbornness that you were my Godfather and a friend of my father's. You had escaped from Azkaban, after being locked up for twelve years for the murder of Peter Pettigrew." There was a choked sound from across the room but Harry ignored it. "The Dementors were everywhere... You were to be given the Kiss on sight. I didn't know until myself, Ron and Hermione were in the Shrieking Shack that Pettigrew was the one that had given away my parent's hideaway, betrayed them as their secret keeper. He had been hiding as a rat for twelve years, if you can believe it. No one suspected a thing. But Remus came to defend you and then Snape turned up and with the full moon... In all the chaos he got away and with him gone so was your chance of clearing your name. You had to go into hiding."

Sirius was nodding, his brow marred with a frown as though he wanted to say something, but refrained. Harry rolled his shoulders slowly, sighing at the tension there. "In fourth year my name got dropped into the Goblet for the Triwizard Tournament by a death eater we later learned was in disguise as one of the professors the whole time. Not only that, but that was the year Voldemort resurrected. The cup had been transformed into a portkey and it dragged me and... and Cedric to a cemetery. My blood was taken and they... they killed Cedric. They..." Harry struggled with the old pain, his fingers clutching in the fabric of his shirt before he shook his head with a grimace. "He came back and nobody believed me and I was branded a liar by the minister and the next year I lost the only thing I had ever had close to a father. Sirius was taken from me 'cause I was too stupid to tell a fake vision apart from a real one and... Merlin, they had to believe me then, they saw him with their own eyes! He was everywhere... in the school, the muggle world, the ministry. His death eaters were all over the place and it had to be stopped. We had to stop him. No one else was going to stop him. It had to be me. I had to stop him. I had to kill him. I..."

Fingers were digging into his shoulders so abruptly Harry jerked at the contact, his eyes blinking back the all too real nightmares that were playing across his vision to find himself breathing like a man deprived of oxygen, his father's worried face just inches from his own.

"I had to do it." He gasped, the sound of his own voice desperate and raw. "He had to be stopped and no one else could... I was the chosen one, it was me. It was always meant to be me."

"Oh Harry..." James pulled with gentle but persistent hands, gripping the youth until his thin form had collapsed from the cushions and crumpled into his father's lap, his chest heaving with sobs that held no tears but all the panic of a young child pushed too far. This was how the other world had won? By sending a child to war as a captain? The hazel-eyed man felt his heart stutter in his chest, his arms coming around to wrap Harry in an embrace he doubted the boy had ever gotten in his life. His Harry had been so pure, so sweet and innocent that the thought of knowing he would never face battle was one that had James almost relieved. This Harry was broken... Lost and uncertain and it tortured something inside of him to see any form of his son in such a way.

"Sirius, could you firecall Sev, please? A good calming draught is needed. You might... You might want to call the other two aswell."

The dark haired man had risen from his seat to crouch beside his friend and the boy still mumbling incoherencies into James' chest, his small body wracked with the force of his own breathing. Sirius paused, his brow furrowing. "Are you sure?"

"Now is as good a time as any." James replied with a sigh, taking the blanket Pansy had suddenly materialised with, with a thankful smile and wrapping it around the youth's scrawny shoulders. "Besides, it wouldn't do to keep something like this hidden for long unless it was something that was just going to go away. He won't be going back there if I have anything to say on the matter."

The raven haired man nodded once before taking off. Severus had already seen the state of the boy and could quickly be filled in on who exactly he was. Lily and Remus would be an altogether different problem to tackle. He would need to sit them down before they even laid eyes on the Harry Potter that looked as though the world had taken all it could from him.

###

"I know you, you know. Or, at least, I knew who you were in my world."

Harry had calmed somewhat, his cheeks now bright with the memories of his display only moments before hand and a mug of tea clutched in his hands as Pansy combed her fingers through his hair where she stood behind his seat. Much to his dismay, scowling did little to deter the woman and whining only made her tug more harshly in an attempt to style his wayward curls. Where the others had gone, he wasn't sure, but Harry was now left alone in the living room with the woman, an intense Draco Malfoy and the three other men lounging in various chairs about the room.

Ron was seated the closest, his hands tucked between his thighs and his mouth opening every so often as though he wished to speak, only to snap it shut when Harry looked his way. Much to the green-eyed man's amusement, this Ron's ears blushed the same ferocious red as his own friend's. Gregory Goyle had offered him one strange look of speculation before dragging down a book from the many that decorated the shelves and lapsing into a silence. It was a strange sight, indeed, the one of Gregory Goyle enjoying a bit of light reading. The third member, the blonde with dark eyes, cupped his chin in his hands, his mouth twisted in thought and his eyes locked somewhere beyond Harry; another soul who longed to question him, no doubt, but was either too embarrassed or too shy to.

A creature who shared none of this apparent shyness was the vampire Draco Malfoy. The blonde was sat before him on the carpet, an action Harry couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at as it was an act Harry was certain the old Malfoy would have turned his nose up at. This Malfoy sat cross-legged quite happily, his hands draped across his lap and his spine straight as he studied Harry through those unnerving scarlet eyes without blinking. The dark haired youth had supplied the information purely in the hopes the blonde might stop his creepy interrogation.

Malfoy blinked slowly, his head tilting to one side to drop a heavy amount of silken hair against his front. "You knew me in your world. Was I as fortunate to be your friend, little one?"

The endearment was one that Harry's befuddled brain could not decide whether it adored or despised; somehow sounding special in this Malfoy's voice even though it held the memories of a voice far more snide and with a lot more bitterness. This vampire was clearly an altogether different beast to the tormenting presence that had been Harry's old rival and he wasn't quite sure what to do with that knowledge.

"Not exactly..." Harry's lips twitched in a smile, "You're a prat."

The response granted him a raised blonde eyebrow and an unexpected giggle of amusement from the woman still toying with his hair.

"He's a prat here, too." Pansy supplied helpfully, uncaring of the hiss Malfoy aimed in her direction, his lips pulling back over snow white teeth to bare his fangs. Harry found himself entranced, his own lips parting.

"How did you become a vampire?"

That seemed to startle Draco, his lips settling into a small 'o' of surprise and his eyes darting back to stare at Harry. "I am not a vampire where you come from?"

Harry shook his head. "Nope," he sighed, "you're a bully and you like pushing people about and you insulted my friends so we were kind of enemies from the start. We were... I wouldn't call it getting along but, putting up with one another the last time I saw you. You came back to finish your studies in Hogwarts with a few other Slytherins and you thanked me for speaking up for you and your mother so she wasn't put in Azkaban for helping Voldemort."

"My mother and I helped Voldemort?" Draco's voice had become a violent drawl, cold and stilling the fingers in Harry's hair. He shifted, feeling almost as if he had said something he shouldn't have.

"No, not exactly. Your father helped and supported Voldemort, your mother and you just kinda were forced into it. She saved me... When Voldemort tried to kill me in the forest. Without her help, I'd be dead and the whole Wizarding world could have been under his reign." Harry watched the blonde's features relax, his scowling mouth settling into something of a curious pout before he reached a hand forward to toy with the edge of the blanket Harry was still wrapped in, drawing a furious blush from the smaller boy. Enemies, indeed.

"My father was one of the men placed under a mind spell with Voldemort's first rise to power, when I was still a babe. Like a fraction of the other men, his mind broke beneath the strain when Voldemort's soul was shattered by Neville. Though my mother tried to care for him and raise me at the same time, it became too much for her and she agreed to sign him into the care of St. Mungo's psychiatric ward. It is, perhaps, a better faith for him than the one that has been dealt him in your world. At least where he is now he is at peace, even if he does not understand it." Draco glanced upwards, his nose perking with the scent of blind fascination that came from the younger boy. It was as unrestrained as the happiness of a child, or the giddiness of a pup and Draco found it almost bizarre coming from such a fragile war hero. He continued with a gentle tilt to his lips, his fingers working slowly against the soft cotton edge.

"When I was nine, mother brought into my life a man who would teach me to be a Wizard in place of my father. It is the right of all pureblood's to learn the very basics of magic before their entry into Hogwarts, as she said. Her attempt to nurture me was, perhaps, misguided as she sought out a man renowned for his talent and name. Had she believed that he would see in me his prodigy and a means of continuing his line, it is doubtful she would have ever brought him into my life. Regardless, the man was a born vampire, birthed as so few true vampires are. He could not control his instincts once they had decided upon an heir, much to my mother's dismay."

Draco stilled as he caught sight of Harry's grimace, the boy's green eyes wide with distress. He frowned. "I am unsure how it works in your world, little one, but I assure you what I am is no misfortune. It is an honour to be seen as an heir for a true vampire, to become one myself. I carry not only my father's name but also the name of my mentor and Sire. Though mother was against it, believing the man would steal away her only child, even she has come to appreciate it."

Draco's fingers trailed to the destination, tugging the cup from Harry's frozen hands and clasping one within his own with a bright grin. "My counterpart is a fool for throwing away friendship with someone as fascinating as you, little one, and I would be honoured to introduce you to a side of me that you clearly have never seen."

Harry stared at the pale hand nestled with his own, Malfoy's perfectly manicured nails and soft skin so odd against his own blunt fingernails and the calluses he bore from training and riding his broom. He blinked at the man sat before him, his lips tugging upwards of their own accord.

"Nice to meet you, then, I'm Harry James Potter." He supplied with a chuckle.

Sharp teeth flashed brightly, blood red eyes locking with his own. "A please, Mr. Potter. My name is Draco Malfoy-Snape."

Harry's smile froze, another name from his past that should have no reason to be cropping up in the present. Snape was as dead as his father and Godfather, a man Harry could now forgive and acknowledge as brave; if not somewhat misguided. Was this version of Malfoy trying to tell him that Snape was not only still alive but a vampire? A born vampire? How the hell did that work? Vampires were bitten, like a werewolf, right?

"Snape?"

Malfoy was toying with his hand absently, his eyes locked on the pale skin as he turned Harry's limb over in his fingers, cataloguing each scar with a slant to his gaze. He glanced up at Harry briefly, before switching his attention to the other hand. "Yes, you mentioned him in your story, I had assumed you knew him. Though, why he would be at Hogwarts and find himself between your Godfather and Remus in the shrieking shack, I have no idea."

"He was my potion's professor, he went to school with my dad, to Hogwarts." Harry tried to pull his fingers back, only for a sudden tightening of the vampire's grip and a flash of red to let him know that he was probably safest leaving it where it was, much as it embarrassed him. Pansy's fingers had long since left his hair, her curious face now watching him form where she sat lounged on the armrest of Ron's chair.

"Truly?" Malfoy hummed in thought, sliding one soft thumb against Harry's wrist.

"Yeah," Harry frowned, "he wasn't a vampire though. Born or made, he was just Snape. He hated me, 'cause he hated my dad who bullied him and because he loved my mother, who chose my dad over him. He never loved anyone after her... I saw his memories, you know? Of the day he found her dead... So much pain... In the end, he tried to protect me from it all. He wanted to save what was left of my mother and it hurt him all over again when Dumbledore told him that I would have to die so Voldemort could be killed." Harry felt Draco's hands withdraw, the blonde frowning up at him with an expression Harry could not determine as either good or bad. "He was a good man."

"Was?" Draco sounded almost pained, his eyes bleeding to a darker crimson.

Harry nodded slowly, grasping his hands to himself once more. "He gave me his memories so his death wouldn't be for nothing. So I would know. Ever since, he's been one of the people I regret losing in the war, because I never really knew him beyond the hate he had for my father and I never got to thank him."

"Thank who? Draco, do refrain from weeping all over our bond, if you would? It is most unbecoming."

Harry all but leapt out of his skin, his head snapping up to stare at the man that had just come through the double doors, his voice as strange to Harry's senses as Sirius' had been even if it held an accent it had never held before.

Severus Snape, only it almost wasn't.

The man stood before him now was taller, held upright with a confidence his old Professor simply had not possessed. His thin frame looked elegant beneath the black pants and equally black shirt he wore, the only part of his snow white skin on display the pale hands braced on his hips and a face that had haunted Harry's nightmares for weeks. Narrow, sharp and with a regal nose that had most definitely not belonged on the face of the old potions master, it was blank as it surveyed the room before landing firstly on Harry and then on the blonde sat on the floor. Snape's blood-red eyes rolled heaven-ward, a strand of soot-black hair falling from the clasp holding it all at the nape of his neck. "'Ow many times must I tell you not to sit on ze floor like a commoner, Draco?"

The French accent was one Harry had definitely been not expecting. He stared up at Snape, well aware that his mouth was agape and his eyes were no doubt as wide as saucers. He was frozen as he watched the man pull the blonde from his seat with one pale hand around his arm before pushing him instead into the side of the couch that Harry was not currently occupying. With a flick of curiosity in his direction, the tall vampire crouched before the younger man, red eyes locked with red.

"What 'as you so upset, mon étoile?" The man's dark voice had softened, his pale fingers tipping Draco's chin until the boy's crimson eyes had faded to a dull ruby. Draco sighed, casting a glance towards Harry before opening his mouth to spill fluid French.

Harry watched them speak, catching nothing in the rapid, foreign language despite Fleur's best efforts to teach him a handful of French words. It was bizarre. Stranger, perhaps, than even seeing his father alive was witnessing such a strong family bond between Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape, the blonde's voice lilting with his emotions and Snape's lips softening in a smile of comfort that Harry knew for certain had not graced his Snape's lips in many, many years.

"Why are you French?" Harry leaped on a sudden lull in the conversation, his curiosity dragging holes in his common sense even as Snape's red eyes focused on him, one dark eyebrow quirked in what could only be amusement.

"You are so very little to be creating such a big fuss, young one." The teasing of Snape's tone went over Harry's head and he flushed, one hand lifting to tug a fistful of dark hair only for the action to be halted with a sharp slap to his wrist that had him yelping and pulling away from the blonde now sat beside him.

"You'll go bald," Draco sounded almost sullen, crossing his arms stiffly as he watched his mentor pull a stool before the younger boy.

"I am French," Severus spoke with an indulgent smile as he sat, "because zat is where I was raised, little one. Zough I was born to my mother here in England, the Council believed I would benefit ze most beneath zeir watchful eyes. Now, be still a moment."

Draco ignored the glare the youth aimed in his direction when he struck his fingers from his hair once more, a tick twitching the corner of his mouth with the amount of venom forced into that one stare. Yes, that was definitely a glare brought on from years of practice. His eyes followed Severus' hands as his Sire pulled a tiny vial filled with the tranquil blue of a calming draught from his pocket and handed it to Harry, threatening violence when the boy clutched his hands to himself and looked at the potion warily.

To think, there existed a world in which Severus had been nothing more to him than a Professor and had died while Draco himself was still in school. To think there could exist a world where Severus had not been more than a father to him, his life ended in one blow. It was inconceivable. Were Draco to imagine a life where Severus had not guided him, had not mentored him and helped him and held him when he cried... well, with such a life as that then Draco could fully understand why his counterpart had become nothing more than a bully guided by anger and hate. The overbearing world of a Pureblood had been a world spared from him by only Severus' presence and his mother's loving nature. He knew that Tommy and Pansy and Gregory were not so lucky, proven by their increasing presence in the house he had been staying in while Severus worked on his volatile potions.

"Do not think so much, Draco. You will 'urt yourself."

The blonde sneered at the remark, his mind calming as he noticed it for what it was. Severus was alive and well, a born vampire with great pull in the Council and an award winning potions master to boot. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Draco's eyes trailed over the fragile figure now resting beneath the pull of a forceful calming draught, his green eyes lidded and becoming heavier by the moment. The boy's full lips were parted in a sigh, his pale cheeks flushed in a pink hue that had Draco captivated. Pretty little thing...

Red eyes snapped to Severus when the man stood, chuckling. "James will not be so accepting of your thoughts, mon étoile." His amusement rang clearly through the blood bond that connected them, mixing with the vague feelings of interest that centred solely around the mysterious Harry Potter as Draco watched him. He spared his Sire only a quirked eyebrow before returning his sights to the boy curled in on himself. James held no claim over this one... As much as he may view Harry as his own son, this was a young man who had grown without a father's stern rule and Draco couldn't imagine he would be susceptible to it if James attempted to order him around.

There was a muffled thump, as though someone had fallen hands first through the floo connection above their heads, before the sound of harried steps on old stairs filled the house and James' voice cursed expletives as he came through the floo soon after. Panicked breaths registered to Draco's ears, his head tilting as he listened to the beat of a frantic beat seconds before the wide-eyed, gasping figure of none other than Lily Potter stood in the doorway.

The redhead wore her sleepwear still, a robe thrown about her shoulders haphazardly and her auburn waves ruffled with sleep. Her green eyes, however, held little in the way of self-consciousness and focused solely on the one thing that would cause her to react in such an undignified, chaotic manner.

It had to be a joke, her mind insisted, a brutal prank that would rip away whatever progress she had made in the sixteen years since her baby boy had left her. There was no way... No way her son could return to her in any shape or form, in this world or any other. Her husband's story had been the work of nightmares, fabricated from a depraved mind as surely as Sirius assurances had been. She needed to see for sure. She needed to know they were lying to her and she had run from their outstretched arms and Remus' tear-stained face. It had to be a joke... It had to be... Her little boy was gone. He was long gone, why would she do this to herself? Why did her heart flutter with the weakest imitation of hope when she skidded to a halt in the living room of Grimmauld Place and her eyes immediately found the tiny figure wrapped in a blanket with a shock of jet-black hair that almost sent her to her knees with the memories.

Why was that story sounding ever more true as she moved forward step by shaking step, her hands fisted beside her and her eyes pinned on the young boy who looked a great deal short of eighteen as he shifted in his magic-induced sleep, his pale face turning towards her and his lips parted in the way they did every night when she had put him to bed.

And though her mind was suddenly frozen with the facts that this could not be her son and was not her son and had never been her son; Lily saw only the boy's sweet face and snub nose and wayward curls that she leaned forward to brush from his forehead with a quaking hand. She saw only the violent scar that marred his pale skin and the hands that clutched at the blanket, as though her touch had frightened him and something had struck him in his young life that she could no longer protect him from.

Her son... Lily felt her knees give in, would have connected with the hard floor if Severus had not gripped her waist and tugged her backwards onto the stool positioned before the couch. Her son, Lily let her face drop into her hands, her sobs not waking the young boy but drawing a supporting grip from Pansy and a wince from the others.

Her son... And she had failed him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:**

"Personally, I see nothing but bad coming from him staying here."

"You absolute beast, Gregory," Pansy growled, slapping her wand down on the countertop so that the spoon stirring the pot of soup fell to one side. She glared at the man stood beside her chopping vegetables, his hulking form one of the least intimidating things to someone who understood the calm, peace keeping brain at work behind the muscle. "How can you say that? You of all people!"

The man tensed, his brown eyes slanting in a glare at the shorter girl before he rolled his eyes and continued on with his task. "It's not as though I'm saying it to be cruel. Truly, I like the kid, I think he's someone who could be a good friend to us all; at the same time you really have to consider just how much of a danger magnet he must be. I mean, we went to school with Neville and despite his title he was no different from the rest of us, protected from the war, never told what was going on. As far as we were concerned, nothing could harm children and until Neville took his own life, the war seemed like something that would never touch us. You know how treasured children are."

"Your point being?" Pansy replied snidely, flicking the stove off with a turn of her fingers and gathering her hair in one hand to throw into some semblance of a bun.

"Well," Greg put down his knife, glancing up to watch Ron and Tommy set the table, an unhelpful Draco lounging in the window seat to one side and shouting directions when his eyes were not trailing over the sunlit garden outside. "Think about it. Obviously, where he's from the war involved children. It made them fight, made them terrified; their teachers could not even protect them. What kind of damage would that do to a kid his age? I know there are children in this world who are mentally abused from a young age, I being one of them, but we are few and far between and I have always had Professor Dumbledore and Slughorn to fall back on, and Sirius and James when we became a part of the Order at nineteen. I never had to deal with it alone and I have a home to turn to when my parents attempt to interfere now."

He turned to look at the girl squinting up at him, her mouth pulled in a tight scowl. "This boy has had no such backing. Even you, when your parents attempted to force you apart from Ron could counter with leaving home and staying here unless they changed their minds. What second home did he have to run to? All I am saying is that his mentality is unstable at best from what I can gather of his background and home life. I'm not saying to cast him out on the streets, just that reservations must be had with regards to trusting him entirely."

Pansy sighed, her shoulders slumping beneath the heavy material of her pullover. "It's hard not to feel sorry for the boy... Neville may have had a normal school life and every adult fighting for him but I still remember the nightmares he had near the end. They came on so suddenly, and he said it was as like you-know-who himself was in his mind, whispering to him, showing him horrible things. Harry suffered more even than that when he was just a little boy."

"He's stronger than you're giving him credit for. The both of you."

Draco watched them turn towards him, their faces a mask of both pity and wariness. One too willing to trust and the other not willing at all, it was an opposition of opinions that could, if treated badly, grow into something far nastier. He stood from his perch by the sill, stretching his arms before his body and watching the play of sunlight against his pale skin; the perks of being heir to a true vampire. The blonde crossed his limbs swiftly. "He is strong. His mind is not broken from years of abuse, it would show too easily in his eyes. He desires above all else to live and that desire has lent him a strength beyond his years. Do not attempt to coax a reaction from him Greg, if the power I can smell on him when he is distressed is a fraction of what he possesses, you would end up the worst off from the confrontation. And Pansy, you know better than to coddle people. In my opinion, he does not need your sympathy or your observations on how damaged he may be, he needs only a friendly hand."

"And this has nothing got to do with the way you were staring at him while he was asleep on the couch?" Ron was grinning, his freckled nose wrinkled in mirth as he put down the last plate. Tommy snorted beside him, his golden blonde hair tousled with the many times he ran his hands through it.

"Yeah, Draco," the shorter blonde smiled up at him, "the googly eyes you were making 'till Severus took him upstairs weren't exactly 'only friendly'."

"Desist, you nuisance," Draco hissed, swatting the small yellow-haired man with a good-natured backhand to the head. "I'll admit, he intrigues me."

"Is that what you're calling it now, is it?" Tommy squealed as he was grabbed in a headlock, his hair mussed further by a pale, slender hand before a thickly accented bark from the other room had Draco releasing him and backing up like a wounded puppy. There were perks to having a vampire mentally leashed to a man of practical nobility. Reckless and childish though Draco tended to be, Severus would never be far enough away to allow the man to get himself into danger or show himself up in the eyes of the media. It was both a blessing and a curse when that strive for perfection bled into other aspects of Draco's life, such as his friends.

Tommy coughed awkwardly, black eyes darting towards the window when Severus' scowling face appeared around the door and glared in their direction. "And just what do you zink you are doing, behaving like a wild dog who 'as been unleashed from 'is lead? Desist your play acting, Draco, or I will 'ave no option but to return you to our 'ome. And you, Mr. Pettigrew, your father may 'ave ruined 'is name but you are your mother's only 'ope of showing zis damnable society zat blood counts for little when doing what is right is in question. Behave yourselves!"

Tommy shrunk back, his blonde waves dropping over one dark eye as he tipped his head. Family was a sore subject with him at the best of times. Though he adored his mother and prayed she was happy living with her sister in America, the neglect he had suffered from her subservient ways and inability to be responsible had often left him in the care of others his whole life. When his father had been imprisoned for following He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the woman had become a wreck, certain that no husband of hers could ever deceive her in such a monumental way. For years, his father had sought to help a madman who wanted to eradicate all that was different from the purity of Wizarding society and neither of them had known. Just as he had obviously done something wrong in the world this new boy had come from, so had Peter Pettigrew been a bad man in the reality that had been Tommy's life. Pleasant, if distant, to his son, that had not stopped him from bringing danger and suspect down upon his family and then leaving them for life in Azkaban. Had he not begged his mother to leave him with the Order, with the men who had raised him, Tommy believed he would have succumbed to her unending cycle of love and hate for a man she had given everything to and been given nothing but heartache in return. At least, with the Order, Tommy had a purpose and the logic of knowing that his father was not an extension of himself.

Cold hands gripped his face, fingers tipping his chin upwards as a gentle voice tsked above him. Watery black eyes found a set of similarly dark orbs surrounded by flawless pale skin. Severus shook his head, his thumb stroking against the soft skin of Tommy's jaw. "I mean not to upset you, sweet one. I mean only to remind you of the 'onour you so rightly deserve to carry. 'Old your 'ead 'igh, Thomas.

"You, 'owever!" The older man whirled, gripping Draco by the ear in one fluid motion and dragging the lanky blonde closer, "You, I expect to 'ang your 'ead in shame! What 'ave I said about physical displays of violence, serious or not? You set a bad example for the children you may one day 'ave running around your feet when you resort to 'andling another person without consent."

"I doubt he'd mind handling Harry with consent."

"Ronald Weasley, must I remind you zat lowering your voice to a quiet murmur is pointless wiz a vampire in ze room?" The statement was spoken with a weary sigh, Severus' fingers leaving Draco to pinch the bridge of his nose as the redhead leaning against the counter beside Pansy turned a shade of puce. "It would be wise of you to take Ms. Parkinson and let Molly know what 'as transpired. Is your sister not trained as a Mediwitch? I do not doubt zat Ginevra will offer the boy a far better treatment than any 'e may receive from simply taking my nutrient potions."

Ron's ears were still a vibrant scarlet as he dragged Pansy from the room to make use of the floo. Draco watched them go with a glare. Though he understood completely the need to let as many trusted people as they could know what had transpired last night, it did not sit well with him that the fragile little thing that was sleeping soundly upstairs would soon be mobbed by familiar strangers, or outright strangers if the paths of his reality had gone a separate way. James, Sirius and Tonks had already left that morning to discuss the occurrence with the Minister and would no doubt return come evening with a wagon-load of Officials and even a few Unspeakables. Those people put his very teeth on edge. What right would they have to poke and prod at the little one who so obviously needed just a simple chance to breathe. Draco's only easing thought was that, in the eyes of all who would look at him, Harry was barely matured, almost a child despite his years and war scarring. If there was one thing that existed in this world that had not in the boy's own, it was that children were revered with the upmost importance, a crucial group to protect and shelter. Far too many were lost to illness to even consider harming one to the point of doing psychological damage. Those who did were punished, those who did were so few it almost counted for nothing.

"'E is not a child zough, you understand zat, do you not?"

Draco blinked, red eyes taking in the suddenly empty dining room. How long had he been lost in his own internal rant? He turned to take in the sight of his mentor leaning against the open window, face upturned against the weak, September sun.

"By Wizarding law, he's an adult. He's reached the age of majority. By those who will judge him by outward appearance, he is a child. He's barely matured into his own body, years of neglect have damaged and weakened him. He is small, he's young in everything but a wariness for what he doesn't know. How can you look at him and not think he is something to be protected?"

"I never said zat." Severus smirked, ruby eyes glancing at Draco through dark lashes. "'E is most certainly in need of strong guidance and a firm hand to show 'im not everyone wishes to lead 'im wrongly. Zat being said," Severus' gaze slanted, "I still do not view 'im as a child. 'Is eyes are too keen, too tired to be ze eyes of a child. It would be best, mon étoile, to view 'im as submissive rather zan as something in need of a parent."

Draco's own eyes narrowed, his head tilting to one side as he listened to the sound of Gregory and Tommy moving about the house, Remus and Lily safely tucked out of earshot in the rooms upstairs as they waited for Harry to wake. "A submissive would need an altogether different type of guidance. To view him as I would a vampire submissive would be to view him as something intimately precious, something feral but in need of control, something fertile... something to strive to be desirable for. You want for me to court him."

Severus shrugged, his lips tugging in a smile. "I see only the desire within my heir's mind and offer a solution that will grant 'im what 'e desperately wishes for. Your childhood bond was weakened to me ze moment you laid eyes on zat boy, I felt it. My only 'ope now is that you do not ruin a potential bond wiz the mate you are pining for. Treating 'im as a creature like your own will offer you a middle ground by which to work wiz 'im, or make 'im so grateful 'e will tumble into your arms. I seek only an heir to my bloodline and your 'appiness. The little one can grant me both."

Draco froze, his red eyes flaring wide. "You're saying you would change him for me... If we both wanted it. You'd truly make him a submissive vampire?"

Severus sniffed, standing straight and dragging a hand through Draco's long blonde hair with a sharp smile. "'E is already submissive. The boy cries out for 'is 'eavy burden to be lifted from 'is shoulders, for someone else to be in charge. Making him a true vampire would only heighten such tendencies, as it brought out your need to lead and to take on responsibility of zose you 'old most dear." The man paused, sharp teeth flashing against his bottom lip, "but yes, if you both desire it, I will turn 'im."

###

His eyes were open before sound had begun to sink into his conscious mind, scanning the small room, his hands moving to shift his body from the plush bed until legs unstable with sleep made him crumple to the floor and drag his quilts with him. The sudden snap from dreamless sleep to awake was done with barely a noise to notice it by, his body kneeling against the carpeted floor as cautious eyes stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling, uncomprehending and blurred still with the remnants of sleep.

It wasn't until his almost soundless escape from the sheets that entangled him brought a ghost to his bedroom door that Harry's new reality came down on him like a bucket of ice cold water.

"Remus."

The man that could have been no other than Remus Lupin also couldn't possibly be the professor Harry had loved and respected. This man looked younger by several years, at least half a decade below the age he believed the new Sirius to be and with skin that positively glowed with good health. His cheeks were rounded with a lifetime of healthy eating, his body slender and swift, devoid of the weariness the old Remus had carried so heavily upon his shoulders. Had his bright eyes not been the vibrant gold of his wolf, Harry would have mistaken the man for human, so... natural did he appear with his soft brown hair cut in a neat bob around his fresh face. Harry watched him shut the door with a gentle click, his lips spread in a blinding smile over his perfect teeth as he all but scampered across the room and flung himself quietly and soundly down on the floor beside the younger man. Before the reality of the man's sudden jump in status from dead to living could even sink in, Harry was being embraced by his old mentor, arms seeming just as familiar now as they had done all those times he had comforted Harry in the past.

When Remus drew back, it was with eyes almost blinded by tears, his hands coming up to wipe the stains from his cheeks as a self-deprecating chuckle fell softly from his lips. "Sorry," he laughed, "Merlin, you don't even know me and here I am. Oh, Harry... You've no idea what seeing you means to me, to us. Alive and well."

"Seeing me?" Harry's own voice had broken, his lips clamping shut to avoid the tremble, he hiccupped, diving forward to wrap his arms around the man's neck. Stranger or no, this was Remus. This would always be the man who had raised his hopes after Sirius had passed, who had gone into battle with him as a friend. "Remus, you're dead," Harry sobbed, "where I come from, you're dead. You and Tonks and you left him behind just like I was left behind when my parents died. I can't..."

"Shh, Harry, shh, dearest," Remus stroked a hand against the boy's knotted hair, combing through the mess with long fingers, "it'll all be alright now, my strong, little godchild." His Harry was as beautiful as he had been as a baby, as a child; those round eyes still a brilliant green and his scent just as comforting. That he had come from an alternate world made little difference to the beast inside Remus, this was the cub that had been entrusted to them should anything happen to James or Lily. This was his cub as surely as his own son was.

"Godchild?" Harry drew back, a frown embedded in his pale skin, "I thought Sirius was my Godfather?"

"Yes, Sirius and I both, just like James promised. I... I wasn't where you came from?" The thought was one that didn't sit well with Remus, his inner beast protesting the notion that James could have left him out in any world. Where there was Sirius, there was also Remus, James knew that. The pair were bondmates, bonded since before their graduation from Hogwarts. Why christen one Godfather and exclude the other? It was... worse than cruelty.

"Well, no," Harry was shaking his head, "I don't think I ever had a Godmother but Sirius was my only Godfather. I think I was meant to go to you if anything happened to him but it didn't work out that way... Dumbledore needed me with Aunt Petunia."

Remus snarled, "that's ridiculous. Why would you go to me if something happened to Sirius? We live together, we've been together most of our lives, why would going to one be different from going to the other... Oh." Gold eyes flared wide as the scent of Harry's shock filtered to him. "That's why." The werewolf breathed, his mouth falling open in a pained sigh. "Sirius and I were never bondmates in your world. We never fell in love. Oh..."

Harry watched the youthful man press a shaking hand to his lips, his eyes brimming once more with fresh tears as he choked down a sob. His Godfather and Remus were living together? Not only living together but practically married? How in Merlin's name had that happened?

"No," Harry scooted closer to Remus, taking one of the man's clenching fists, "No, I don't think ye were ever together like that. Sirius was never with anyone permanently, he spent a great deal of his life in Azkaban and died a few years after he escaped. And you, you didn't marry Tonks 'till a couple of years ago and Teddy was only a baby when ye both passed in the war."

"Tonks?" Remus' laughter was disbelieving, his golden eyes widening, "Teddy?" The man shook his head, his smile bemused if a little strained. "God forbid. Tonks is a lovely girl, but heavens, no. I would be half the man I am without Sirius." Harry couldn't help but agree with him there. Especially if this Remus was the same age as Sirius, life with the dark haired prankster had clearly done wonders for him.

"And Teddy? Who's Teddy?"

"Your son," Harry smiled, thinking fondly of the little baby with the shock of lightning blue hair and vivid pink eyes. He had barely caught a glimpse the last time he had seen his little godson before Andromeda had had to leave to visit family off-land. "He's the cutest little kid, was barely a few months old when you passed. You made me Godfather, you know, but the courts decided it would be best if Tonks' mom raised him considering I was so young."

Remus snorted, shaking his head. His life had clearly been a roller coaster of a ride in this strange alternate world. "Clearly your courts' system needs a revision. I had my Philip when I was only sixteen and he's turned out positively incredible. A published scholar already and travelling the world to discover new creatures and he's only twenty-eight. My youth did him no harm and nor did it take away from my life. I do wish I could have had more though..."

Twenty-eight years since he was sixteen, so that would make this Remus forty-four, Harry nodded slowly before Remus' words registered and he gaped. "What do you mean you had a baby at sixteen? You're a man! You had a baby with Sirius? Really? At sixteen!"

"Woah, Harry relax," Remus frowned, grounding the frantic boy with a steady hand on his shoulder and drawing him in until the youth was eye to eye. "Werewolves, vampires, fae, water nymphs... So many other male creatures, you're telling me there wasn't a sub species of males within any of these that could give birth naturally in your world, without the help of magic? Are you sure?"

"What do you mean, without the help of magic? Even wizards can't give birth with the help of magic! Can they? Merlin, really? Were we supposed to learn that, that seems like a pretty big biological fact to just skim over... I zoned out in studies but hell I don't think I was that bad..."

Remus almost smiled, this bewildered and insatiably curious Harry one he had never had the pleasure of meeting with their own Harry passing at so young an age. Would that boy have turned out such a way had he lived to see adulthood? Remus would never be sure; but this particular version of his godchild made his heart sing within his chest.

"Maybe it wasn't covered in your particular curriculum, maybe the war distracted from such things. Maybe you were too distracted to consider such options. But I can assure you, Harry, that in this reality there are certain males who can conceive and deliver children and there are wizards who have borne their offspring with the aid of spells and invaluable fertility potions. I did have a son, granted I had him a little young, but once I realised Sirius felt for me what I felt for him, we were bonded almost instantly. I have a picture of Philip that I always keep on me, look."

Harry watched the brunette dig through his very muggle-looking denim jeans, pulling a faded wallet from one and digging through until his fingers closed around a square bit of card worn with age. He took it with wary hands when Remus thrust it in front of him and stared down at the giggling scene of a five year old boy that flickered up at him. On a background of grass, the young child was coloured a healthy peach, his bare arms slathered in snow-white sun lotion and his rosy cheeks flushed with the force of his chuckles. The child bore some resemblance to Teddy, without a doubt that was Remus' round chin and wide eyes. However this child's eyes were a static bronze that blinked happily up at the camera and his nose was a degree sharper, his jet black curls framing his pretty face in a way that could only be a striking resemblance to one Sirius Black.

Remus had a different son that he had given birth to himself.

Remus was bonded to Sirius. They were both alive and together and happy.

Harry's breath caught in his throat, his eyes misting. "He's beautiful, Remmy."

Remus clapped a hand across his lips, his own breath breaking in an almost-sob. "Oh," the brown haired man chuckled, pulling Harry close, "the other Harry used to call me that," he chuckled, "as a toddler, Merlin, I thought I'd never hear it again, cub."

Harry rubbed his nose as he moved back, reality sinking in around him like the most comfortable of blankets. Everything seemed... perfectly alright here. "I thought I'd never hear you call me cub again." Harry shook his head at the surreal-ness of it all. He had met a father he had known he would never meet or know in his own time. He had been reunited with a father-figure he had watched die and never come back. Now, Remus was before him showing proof of the wonderful, happy life he had had simply with one little photo and the health in his features. For a fleeting moment, the thought that he would never again go home, didn't seem like a bad one.

"Remus, did I hear you talking to someone?"

Green eyes pulled away from Remus' smiling face, his own lips tugging upwards as he turned to see who had spoken and for a lifetime, his world froze. The figure in the door had his heart exploding in his chest, the logic of his mind understanding that he should have expected this was nothing compared to the earth-shattering realisation that the matured, pretty-faced woman now stood hesitantly in the doorway was none other than Lily Potter; his mother.

There was no time to consider that this woman may not want to see the sight of him lest it remind her of a son long since dead. There was no logic left in him to play this out in a manner she might prefer, his body had moved with a speed he hadn't known he was capable of. His mind, hardened from years of war tactics and abuse, had recessed to little more than the mind of a child losing their mother for the first time. Every nerve in Harry's body was alight with the fact that she was alive, she was real. His mother was there in front of him and he could hold her for the first time in his life.

He crumpled at her feet, his arms a bruising force around her legs and his sobs destroying whatever voice he tried in vain to use to sound out every thought he needed her to hear. This was his mother. It didn't matter that this was a different woman, it didn't matter that she had raised and put to rest a different son and might not even want him, the only reasoning that kept Harry's magic from sparking a fire against his skin was that this was Lily Potter and Lily Potter was his.

"Mum... Mum,mum,mum,mum..."

Remus stood with a tortured stare, his cub's pitiful whining as he wrapped himself around his mother's legs like a terrified child striking at the very core of his heart. No boy should have to cling to a parent's legs as though they would vanish if they loosened their grip. No boy's painstaking wails should sound like a tortured infants about to be ripped from his mum's arms and draw every member of the household to the landing to discover the heartbreaking sight of the eighteen year old lost to his own destructive thoughts and terrified tears.

Lily stood frozen, her green eyes blown wide and leaking tears that fell, unnoticed, down her cheeks. She bore the heart-wrenching cries for the barest minute before she was dragging the skinny youth to his feet, his short stance half a foot below her average height. She clutched him like she had clutched her own son to her chest all those years ago when they had found his blue-tinged body tucked into his bedsheets. Her Harry. Her son. Hers.

"Oh my poor boy, my beautiful son, what have they done to you? What have they done to you?" She sobbed the words, refusing to release her hold on the sobbing boy until Severus and Draco had no choice but to lift the both of them and force them onto the bed instead of the cold open doorway. Remus felt Sirius' curiosity thrum once more through their bond with this new wave of pain, his thoughts steadying to allow his bondmate some sort of peace as he turned to find a distraught, wide-eyed Molly Weasley clasping her hands in the doorway. He tilted his head to indicate the redhead be with her friend and son before beckoning Severus out to help him get the rest of the Weasley hoard in some semblance of order.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: **

Her hands worked their way through hair that was as thick as it was soft, curling in soft waves that fell about his face in disarray and disorder. She combed through it, relishing in the simple act so long denied her with the loss of her baby boy.

Lily watched the eighteen-year-old tucked between her thighs, she watched his spindly arms unwind from her waist with painful slowness as, minute by minute, he relaxed. His pale face had taken on a greying tinge, unhealthy and unnatural on a youth that should look the part of a man; instead he looked more a lost child to her than her little son had ever been with his cheeky grin. Oh what comfort could be garnered from the simple fact of knowing you were cared for and loved.

This youth was sickly, branded in a way only years of ill nutrition and neglect could do. Her Harry had already been surpassing her hip by the age of seven and, despite his bouts of illness, was strong and filled out with good food. To see any version of her son with wrists that seemed brittle enough to snap and clothes that clung from a petite frame and cheekbones a degree too sharp to be healthy was devastating. She would never forgive her sister and Vernon Dursley, not in this boy's reality nor her own. To know that any form of Petunia could destroy a child so thoroughly as to have him weep for a mother was sickening. Her son should have wanted for nothing.

"Stand up, pet, let me have a look at you."

Lily blinked, green eyes focusing in the brightened room as Molly stood suddenly, her smile cheery as she drew back the curtains. Harry stood as though it was a request he was well used to, his own smile a degree less dreary as he turned his haunting green eyes from Lily to the shorter redhead. Molly hummed as she watched him, tugging at his loose shirt and wrapping her arms around his thin waist to test his bodyweight. She smiled softly, patting his cheek as she withdrew.

"My, aren't you handsome? I'd say you looked just like your father if it weren't for that pretty smile and those big green eyes. Most definitely better looking than James, Lily, pet, wouldn't you agree?"

Lily chuckled at Harry's bright flush, his fingers plucking at the sleeve of his shirt until Lily's voice made him jump like a startled fawn. "Much more handsome, as I always knew he would be," she smiled warmly up at her son, before sighing, "but these clothes just won't do, Molly. He'll need a whole new set, enough jumpers to ward away the coming cold. I think a good stew is in order too, I'll have to see what Pansy had in mind for dinner. It wouldn't do for him to get sick."

"I never get sick," Harry grinned, his spine straightening with subtle pride before he gave a shaky laugh. "I mean, I've broken a few bones and been knocked unconscious a time or two, but I've never gotten so much as a cough. Madam Pomfrey always said I had the immune system of an ox."

It was a silly, little thing; a flyaway comment that meant little barr a sense of small accomplishment to the boy and yet something within Lily heaved a sigh of relief at the words. To think her Harry had been so strong and loved and had still succumbed to illness and passed; having to watch this fragile, delicate thing go the same way would have been more than her heart could have handled. Although...

"Unconscious!" Molly shrieked, tutting and pushing the boy towards the door before taking a hold of Lily's hand and all but dragging her friend from the bed. "That simply won't do! You need your strength, dear boy, you're far too skinny. Heavens, I'll feed you your weight in pastries if I have to get you to a decent size. Come on, we'll go help Pansy with the stew and I can get to work on a new jumper for you. And I know the perfect colour, too!" Molly cast a wink at Lily as the pair followed the smaller youth from the bedroom, Lily smiling back at her so wide she thought her jaws might split.

"Green." Harry said suddenly, drawing both women's attention as he turned on the staircase to offer the sweetest smile at Molly and his mother. "You always knit me something in green, Mrs. Weasley."

###

Harry watched Ron with something of a perplexed grin, smiling fondly at the gangly redhead that moved about Molly and Pansy in the large kitchenette as the two woman debated over the best ingredients to boost the healing properties of a homemade stew. It was a comfort to watch this Ron behave as any Ron would in any reality, with a healthy obsession for a home-cooked meal and a decent amount of fear instilled in him each time Molly turned the wooden spoon on him for sticking his finger in the bubbling soup. It would have been a completed picture, had it not been for the absence of one bushy-haired bookworm and the very surreal addition of the Slytherin beauty that was Pansy Parkinson.

As cold and self-centred as the woman had been in Harry's reality with her midnight black hair and suspicious scowl, she was as warm and welcoming in this one. Her lighter hair seemed to soften her sharp, aristocratic features and the smile that readily broke across her lips as Ron tried to edge past her to steal a spoonful sent an ache of strange familiarity through Harry.

She was no Hermione; that was for certain and Harry doubted whether she would ever replace the witch that had captured his heart and loyalty as a sister and a friend, but she was something new and something undeniably warm and witty with the words she flung so readily at the ever sarcastic Draco and the fool-hardy youth Harry had come to know was called Tommy.

Tommy was another newness. His black eyes were both familiar and a thousand miles from any aspect within his memory that Harry could pinpoint. They all but glittered with humour each time he let loose a snort of laughter from his position wedged between both Fred and George Weasley; a pair of men that Harry still found himself staring at despite his best attempts not to gawk. As perfectly in sync and wickedly filled with humour as they had been in his own world, the only fascinating difference was that it was now George rather than his older brother Bill who bore the eye-catching scarring from a werewolves claws. Light and fragile in the bright sunlight of the room, they crossed his forehead and left cheek in a mismatch of jagged lines, more perfectly healed than Bill's own had been. The sight was one both baffling and depressing enough to leave Harry unable to voice the question of how it had happened.

There was no Bill, no Charlie or Percy, though Harry was sure the men were old enough to have their own lives and his arrival, strange and as unprecedented as it had been, was not enough to warrant all lives to cease and focus on him. On the contrary, the attention was something he was least excited about, because he knew the limelight would fall upon him eventually, it always did.

"I don't suppose you were listening to a word I said, were you, mister?"

Ginny.

Harry turned to face the woman sat in front of him where he curled in an armchair with a grin, taking in the high ponytail and freckled nose and laughing eyes with no small amount of happiness. He loved her as sweetly as another person could love a friend and an ally they had gone to war with and fought beside. She had been a woman capable of piecing him back together, all the while knowing he would never return the love she had grown to feel for him. Ginny Weasley, no matter what form she took, would always be his friend.

"I'm sorry, Ginny, I was daydreaming."

"Of course you were," Ginny raised one eyebrow, the wedding band on her finger glinting and stretching Harry's smile as she tucked away a lock of stray hair and rifled through the bag plonked on the floor before her. "Aha!" she chuckled, sitting back with a handful of slender vials coloured a vile yellow. "Don't make that face at me, mister, you are underweight to a painful degree and the only thing that is gonna strengthen your stomach enough for you to eat enough to gain fat quickly is this delightful little concoction. If I'm not mistaken, it's one of your inventions, Severus, is it not?"

The regal vampire stood by Harry's side like a shadow of a sentry forgotten except for the moments of miniscule movement that reminded Harry of the bodyguard he seemed to have acquired in the strange new version of his potions professor. A pale hand shot out, black-clad legs bending until he had seated himself on the arm of Harry's chair, the yellow vial held before his face with a twist to his lips.

"Indeed, a new product. I was not aware zat the initial beta testing centres 'ad been successful. My gratitude, Mrs. Thomas, for informing me, I 'ad completely forgotten to enquire, I was so certain zat it would be a success."

"Thomas!" Harry snorted, his hands clapping before him in something akin to delight at the thought of his old dorm mate and Quidditch game speaker. "Oh, you married Dean! How is he? Is he as disgustingly charming in this world as he was in mine? Please tell me he's doing something amazing."

Ginny blinked, slowly as she handed the vials to Severus, her lips quirking in a smile as she shook her head. "I keep forgetting where it is you come from. It's like you're this whole new person we get to learn more about and meet and not someone who's lived a life with most of us for the past eighteen years. That's going to take some getting used to." The redhead reached out to ruffle Harry's hair, an act that would have left him horrified had it been his own Ginny, yet seemed almost motherly coming from the twenty-three year old woman who surpassed him by a scant inch and sat as professionally as her medicare background suggested.

"Dean works the second shop we opened up in Hogsmeade with Seamus." Fred's voice had Harry's attention snapping to him, the bright-eyed redhead sharing a look with his twin as the pair edged closer, pulling their chairs until they sat before the boy hardly anybody knew anything about. "It only opened a few months back but business was so good with Zonko's closing that we handed management over to our dear brother-in-law and he hired Seamus as deputy. Suited us fine, of course-"

"What with the shop in Diagon, we've enough on our plates. We split the profit and Dean's happier working for us than he ever was stuffed in that office at the ministry." George was grinning at him, his silvery scars something both fantastic and sad as he looked over Harry with calculating eyes. "But then, you seem to know so much about us, you'd know he'd be happier with us, wouldn't you? Did we have our shop in your world? Was dear old Pansy generous to give us the loan we needed?" Pansy stuck her tongue out fondly, her wand held aloft as she measured food into separate bowls. Harry could do little to prevent the ache that had begun in his cheeks with the length of his smiling.

"You had a shop in Diagon, I gave you my winnings from the Triwizard Tournament to start it up. We needed a bit of humour in our lives and your shop did so much good for everyone. George back home was still going strong with it last I had seen him. Angelina takes care of most of the customer stuff, though, he prefers to work in back."

George frowned, his lips tugging down in a playful scowl. "What's the fun of working in back?" He shrugged in time with Fred, matching blue eyes turning on Harry and alight with curiosity that made them seem so much younger. Scarred though this George may have been, it was nothing compared to the half-man his counterpart had become back home without his twin by his side.

"Angelina?" Fred pursed his lips, "name rings a bell, but can't say she's ever made a lasting impression if we've ever come across her in person, has she, George? What about me then, Harry? Am I the face of our shop if this boring sod prefers to stay in the shadows?"

Before the thought could even register, Harry's hand had shot out, his fingers inches from the bright red shirt that the minutely smaller twin was clad in. In the sudden silence, Harry didn't hear his mother and Molly start to gather the other occupants of the room towards the dining table, he was blind beyond the smiling, if wary, face of Fred Weasley and the white shirt clad form of George Weasley, rigid and upright where he sat by his brother's side.

"I missed you." Harry said instead of an answer that was sure to be more morbid than it was fascinating. This Fred was a very living thing, just like all the people before him in this world that Harry had come to write off as long gone. His blue eyes were bright in a way Harry had not seen before and George was healthy and vibrant in a way Harry believed he would never see again in the George back in his reality. The twins had been his brothers, his guides in all things mischievous and ultimately his friends. The smile Harry offered them both when Fred lifted a hand to clasp Harry's own was brilliant, wide enough to warrant a funny upward curl from the corner of George's mouth.

That was, until Harry found himself suddenly upright, a strong arm around his middle keeping him from toppling with the sudden movement as blonde hair tickled his cheek. Scowling, the youth peered upwards, only to find that Malfoy's gaze was not focused on him but on the two redheads seated side by side and smiling up at the vampire with all the innocence of a red-handed thief. There was a glint of something in those blue eyes for the barest moment before Remus' voice brought Harry's eyes snapping towards the golden eyed werewolf.

"And just what have I told you two about antagonising Draco? Get over here and leave that poor boy alone!"

Twin scowls met with the vampires silent snarl as the pair stood, blue eye to blood-red eye, before George offered a sleek smile and reached out to ruffle a pale hand through Harry's hair. "See you around, pet."

Pet?

Fred followed his brother, sending a fleeting wink in Harry's direction that both baffled and unnerved him. What in Merlin's name was that about? Before Harry could work the strange behaviour out for himself, he was all but carried to an empty seat beside Pansy and plonked softly on the hard wood, Draco's tall frame folding gracefully into the seat on his other side and smiling his thanks at the bowl offered to him. That he was outward gaping at the otherwise silent vampire's sudden display was an understatement. Harry watched the blonde speak happily to Severus in French as the pair ate their meal, ignoring the bowl his mother was trying to push in front of him. He turned his eyes on the twins, watching their subtle hand gestures and grinning faces as the pair spoke to one another. Was there an ongoing feud between the trio that Harry was unaware of? Had he hurt Draco's feelings in some way by reaching out to the twins? Why was it bothering him that he might have hurt this Malfoy's feelings?

He opened his mouth to voice what might be an inappropriate question, though he cared very little so long as he got his answer, only for Fred Weasley rolling up his sleeves with a scowl after spilling sauce on the cuff to force his mouth to snap shut. There, almost blended with the pale skin of the man's arm was a perfect crescent-shaped bite, large enough to have come only from the mouth of a very large dog. Or a wolf.

George's pale scarring caught his eye, Harry's mind blanking as the man turned to answer something Remus had said, the gold in the older man's eyes something familiar and glinting in the sunlit room. Green eyes locked with blue as disbelief painted Harry's features, George's smile quirking in that strange, unfamiliar way as his bright blue eyes flashed pale silver.

The twins were werewolves.

###

A/N: I apologise for the long wait and I apologise that this chapter is so short but I thought it better to finish up here rather than to leave it another week until I got the chance to work on it again. I've been extremely busy with college and work and I'm really sorry but updates are gonna be slow for a bit. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and taken an interest in this though! At the minute I'm reading back on Taken II as it's been quite neglected so that will more than likely be the next story updated in the next week or so. Thanks again people!


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six:**

Alecson Davi rapped pale knuckles against the dark wood of his Office desk, one slender hand twisting the document that rested there in a lazy circle. He squinted up at a pale ceiling through dark-rimmed glasses that cast a shade of silver against his blue eyes.

"So... What you're saying is that your son has come back from the dead?"

James spared a heated glare for the fifty year old Veela sat twirling his written statement with one perfectly manicured hand. Masquerading as a twenty-something year old, the creature possessed a body the envy of most of his female work colleagues and a temper just as bitter should someone treat him unfairly. "Dumbledore may have planted you here, Davi, but I've no qualms slapping a blistering hex on your face if you don't take this seriously."

The blonde scowled, his blue eyes flashing before he rose from his seat, shaking the parchment in front of James' face with a sneer. "You planted me here too, fool, and unless you've forgotten where 'here' is, I am the Registrar for all and any Magical Creatures, born or inheritance-developed. I don't see what this has got to do with me! Sirius, explain!"

The dark-haired Auror snorted, his legs stretched out before him and planted on Alecson's foot stool. "Don't look at me, I wanted to keep it a secret. The boy's clearly had a hard life, he doesn't need the blasted ministry sniffing around him in this world too. If you ask me, there's a damn good reason he was given to us and it's to bloody well give him the life he should have had." The man levelled a glare at James, forcing the smaller be-speckled man to roll his eyes.

"You know well we can't keep him a secret, Sirius!" James huffed, standing and ripping the official document stating the sudden appearance of his son from another realm from Alecson's fingers. More than anything, he wished he could fall back on Sirius' pigheaded arrogance that this Harry would go undetected but that was near impossible. He'd felt the boy's magic, it would only be a matter of time before the Unspeakables caught wind of him and started asking a whole hell of a lot of questions. Covering it up now would only lead to disaster in the future. As much as James disliked the Minister, he had to declare the incident officially, which was why he had drafted up the document in the first place.

"Alecson, I need you to register my son as a Vampire's bonded."

The blonde's eyebrow quirked in curiosity, his hands shuffling paperwork to the floor to sit his backside on his table top, uncaring of the choking noises Sirius Black was creating behind him.

"Registered to whom, if I might ask? There are only two purebred Vampires documented and under my protection in England and that would be Severus and his progeny. All others are mongrels and listed as dangerous. To be honest, James, I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with this position with Dumbledore gone. I know the idea was to hide those who wanted to remain off radar and protect the ones already listed by placing them under a low danger, high humanity class but I am restricted in this office."

"Better you here than that nasty Umbridge," Sirius snarled, scowling at the thought of the pink-frocked woman who had been forced into early retirement by Albus' hand not a year before the fall of Voldemort. "That vile witch had every and all creature pinned with a red flag. People were being killed on sight, slaughtered before their inheritance had even begun to take place. This is why you were drafted in during the war, Alec, you know that. We needed someone with enough drive to warrant the Minister's appeal and enough honour to remain on our side. I know it seems over with You-Know-Who well and gone, but the Order remains a safe haven and sanctuary for Creatures as it did during that madman's reign."

James was nodding, his eyes scanning over the paper held in his hands. "You were picked for the job out of all the soldiers in your clan, we trust you and we rely on you. Besides, aside from the Order, the whole of England still thinks you're human, it's good to be bored once in a while, you've a nasty temper when you get too excited."

The Veela offered the man only a dry look, his hand flicking a short strand of blonde hair from his eyes before he sighed dramatically. "Hiding baby wolves, playing housekeeping with temperamental fae and being babysitter for endangered vampires, that's what I'm doing here, regardless of your pretty words saying otherwise. Nevertheless, I will hold my post as I have done these past years. Until that Minister is voted out, Magical Creatures are mine and mine alone. I'll do it, but I take no responsibility for the human boy, even if he is your son, I draw the line at babysitting humans. Now, who am I temporarily bonding the Potter to?"

"Severus."

"Draco."

James glared at his best friend, before pushing the slowly crumpling parchment into Alecson's outstretched hand and shaking his head. "I am bonding him to Draco, Sirius, I don't care what you think about the boy being a risk-taker, he did us all proud during the battle and he's a better fighter than Severus. Harry can hate me all he wants later, but he's eighteen. I have no say over him at that age, he's completely on his own. At least with a bond, unwanted as it may be, he'll be protected as Draco's if the Ministry decide they like the feel of him. Merlin knows what a situation like that will do to him, and I won't have him taken from me again."

Sirius sighed, heaving himself up from the leather couch to watch as Alecson produced a quill of solid gold and a pot of pale blue ink from his desk drawer, the Veela humming to himself. A bond between creatures signed by the Official Registrar was a bond for life. It was a bond between compatible minds, created and severed only when asked for by guardian or source, unbreakable by any other higher power. If Draco and Harry were ill-suited, as a human and vampire could only be, the adjustment would be hell for them all to deal with. Not to mention that the two bats would have to train Harry to act as a Creature and learn the dangerous patches strewn throughout the Wizarding World for all magical beings of non-human likeness. Though he hated to admit it, the plan was a foolproof one; Sirius only hoped Harry had enough sense to see the brilliance of it. After all, he didn't have to stay bonded to Draco for the rest of his life.

"What makes you think Draco will be okay with this, James?" Sirius frowned as he watched Alecson trace the parchment with a whispered spell, one finger leaving an intricate spiral of blood in the far right corner. "He's a good kid, but he's still a Vampire. They're not exactly known for their cuddliness and fondness of trickery."

"It's not trickery," James winced, "at least not on Severus's part. I couldn't tell Harry or Draco, if they didn't agree to it, his magic would have interfered and Draco would have had my head. I spoke with Severus before we left this morning, and he agreed it was a good idea. He assured me Draco would work to deal with the discomfort and they would both work with helping Harry become less human before the Minister set up a date to meet with him and discuss what happened. He assured me my son was tactical enough to welcome any help offered to him. I hope he's right, I don't know what I'd do if he hated me, Padfoot. I feel so guilty going behind his back but I need to know he's safe..."

Sirius sighed, smiling softly as he wrapped an arm around his friend. "He'll understand, Prongs, he's a forgiving kid and a smart one. Something tells me Draco will only be too happy to guide him through all of this."

###

Werewolves. The twins were werewolves! It was incredible, fascinating and all the more surreal because he seemed surrounded by Creatures. Draco, Severus, Moony, Fred, George... Harry was gripped. Were Creatures more accepted in this society? Did the ratio of human and inhuman balance off nicely or did one outweigh the other? He sat on the floor before the fireplace, his back pressed against the chair his mother had curled up in, her hand stroking through his dark hair as he glanced around the room. Ron had gone home with his mother, Ginny and Pansy, the girl shy and sweet to the Weasley matriarch in a way that could only be endearing. Gregory had sauntered off upstairs with a cracking yawn, aiming a short smile at Harry as he left.

The stranger Tommy was seated upside down on the couch, his head hanging over the edge as he spoke with the twins sat right-way-up on either side of him, their heads nodding in time as they watched his exaggerated hand movements. Harry grinned, he'd taken a liking to the boy despite never knowing him. Tommy was so full of energy, bright and eager to talk and laugh and at the same time shy in a forgetful way, as though the boy would spill his emotions, only to draw back at the realisation of what he had done.

Draco stood against the darkening window pane of the front room with a near invisible Severus Snape, the pair camouflaged in their black clothes had it not been for their moon-white skin and Draco's pale hair. The blonde had his head thrown back against the pane, hands folded before his front as he nodded every so often to something Severus would say, his blood-red eyes softly shut. The midnight black choker that weaved its way around his pale neck seemed like a new addition to his dark outfit, a slash of black against snowy white that had caught Harry's eye countless times throughout the afternoon. Had he not known any better, Harry would have mistaken the appeal for the little bit of decoration as the appeal he had once experienced watching Ginny fly a broom. It had been affection there, genuine even though it had softened to something more familial.

The appeal of the choker around Draco's neck was not softening into something familial, if anything it was frustrating Harry beyond simple words. His thoughts were both focused and jumbled each time he caught sight of it, followed by the gentle sway of that blonde hair and those slim fingers carding through the sleek mass. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he liked it, that it struck something inside of him that lit his insides and his cheeks. At the same time, this was Draco Malfoy. This was a man, a very obvious male with deadly fangs and unnatural speed and strength. Was that... appealing to him?

Draco's eyes opened, crimson catching with green before Harry darted to look into the flames of the fire, fully aware that his cheeks were most likely a humiliating pink. What was the matter with him? The dark haired youth twisted where he sat to look at his mother, his mouth opening in what he hoped would be an eloquent excuse to get the woman alone to speak with her, only for a sudden flare of pain against his skull to have him clasping his forehead with an agonised shriek. Harry gripped at the throbbing space, searching for a bloodied scar, only for the pain to migrate to the back of his skull, flaring as though it would push his eyes from their sockets. He groaned, certain he was on his back against the carpet and rolling about like a madman but unable to move to right himself. The pain went beyond even Voldemort's cursed scar, searing through his mind as though something was weaving a path all for itself inside his personal space.

The hands that tried to pry his hands from his face were like barbed wire against his skin, surely tearing patches from his body until he would bleed to death. He batted at them, kicked out with his feet until they were held down too, the voices around him both deafening and indecipherable, a mumbled whispering that veered with no cause nor explanation to a warbled screaming. Dimly, he was aware of something pushing against something in his mind, a force made of silver and black that struck a wall so heavily embedded into his psyche, it tore at his very soul to have it crumble beneath the unknown strength.

That was, until it cracked, drawing a ragged scream pitched with fear and pain and a sound like a growling whimper from somewhere far from him. He felt it fall, his fingernails dragging against his hair as the force he had never before noticed in his own mind became nothing but dust and ash. In its place, there was something undeniable new, several somethings that rushed to meet him and dragged his heaving body into a sitting position that forced everyone around him back a pace.

It moved, like a snake, twisting and coiling and turning in his mind. It soothed over the cracks left behind by the wall that had sealed it in, pausing for the briefest moment against the force of silver and black that froze like a welcome ice pack against his battered mind, quiet and unmoving but nonetheless alive and completely unfamiliar. The twisting watched it, coiling around it, before moving on, expanding within his skull and behind his eyes until he could feel it in every panicked, raspy breath that left his lungs and beneath skin that felt frayed and fell from him like discarded silk, leaving behind a new layer that prickled with the magic in the room.

Harry heaved a gulp of air, his hands dropping from his face to force wide, terrified eyes on the room full of people gathered against one wall. Their fear and panic existed solely for his welfare, a sour touch to his gasping mouth before it was washed away by the wave of relief that came from his mother. Severus stood before them, his mother, the twins, Tommy and a Gregory that must have come running with the commotion. His fangs were bared, his scarlet eyes wide, until Harry met his stare with a cautious tilt of his own head, confusion painting his face even as he scented it coming from the tall Vampire. Before Harry could move to question what had happened, a nudge against his own mind had him all but leaping from the floor, a small keening shriek leaving his lips as he flung himself around to stare behind him.

Draco Malfoy had never looked so shocked. His blonde hair was rumpled, his knees embedded in the carpet where he had obviously dropped to the floor and his eyes wild. He stared at Harry with both weariness and astonishment, his shoulders heaving though he made no sound. Again, the nudge came inside the brunette's mind, stronger as the chill of silver and black raced across the opening the snake-thing had created, flittering over memories and opinions and subconscious desires until Harry felt it freeze in the uttermost centre of awareness in his conscious mind. Then, like an animal tamed, it rubbed with the sensation of satin against the walls of his mind, drawing a sound of delight from Harry's lips that had little to no business being so loud. He edged forward despite his logical mind shouting questions at him, despite the thinking that roared at him to find out just what the hell had happened and why Malfoy now seemed to be rubbing his mind all over Harry's, marking him like some great big cat.

Harry crawled towards the kneeling vampire, some primal part of his brain forcing him to roll over onto his back not a foot from the blonde's perch, his hands harmless by his sides and his head tilted to stare up at the narrowed red eyes of the blonde.

_Such a pretty blonde... So beautiful and sweet and strong... Smells so good, feels so good, mine, mine, mine. Mineminemineminemineminemineminemineminemineminemineminemine..._

_Mine_. A voice purred in Harry's head, drawing a whine from the boy's lips as he brought pale arms decorated in dark emerald scales up towards Draco. The blonde watched him, his eyes taking in the soft scales that curled around slender wrists and thin biceps, disappearing beneath the cotton shirt only to reappear against the boy's pale neck, curving around one soft jaw to dance an intricate spiral pattern across one flushed cheek and above one dark eyebrow. Vivid green eyes stared up at him, the pupil's slit to near nothing as the creature pursed pretty rosebud lips to make that enticing sound once more. Dark hair spilled about his shoulders as Harry's mind rubbed against the unbreakable bond somehow forged between them, narrowing Draco's gaze and forcing him closer to the submissive displaying himself across the floor. His. This beauty was his.

Severus felt his mental bond with Draco flutter out of existence, only the barest echo of his heir's emotions remaining behind as he watched the blonde hover over the small little creature that the Potter boy had suddenly and viciously become. The bond, as fragile and unimposing as Severus had agreed with James to make it, had snapped something within the boy, a magical wall implanted from youth that Severus had felt through Draco's mind as clear as day; a seal broken by bond magic. But what seal and why had the boy been hindered so? There was no mistaking the raw power in the room and who it belonged to, and if Severus were to assume, he would place the cause for such a seal on the fact that this particular Harry Potter was clearly not human.

###

A/N: I am unsure if I like this... or the way it's going. I'm not sure if it works but I didn't want Harry to end up just being Draco's sub. I wanted to give him a power of his own and add a bit of a twist. Ah sure, I suppose this can be a test run then. If it's liked, I'll keep going along this line, if it's hated I'll scrap it and keep going with the Vampire sub plot.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven:**

The men had left not twelve minutes ago; the signed and sealed document declaring Potter's son as officially betrothed under a Creatural Bond clasped in James' fingers. Despite his inner qualms and the nerves that unsteadied his hands, James Potter had breathed a sigh of relief as Alecson signed the form with a flourish, the spell that had been cast upon him by the Unspeakables ensuring that it was his signature and his blood alone that produced a legally and mentally binding contract between the Malfoy-Snape heir and the Potter boy. His was a position taken with no amount of light-heartedness. It was on him to bond those who wished to be bonded, to document each and every soul-mate bond created by Magic beyond his control, to keep track of every Creature born or Creature Inheritance received. Had it been anybody but James Potter and Sirius Black that had come to him demanding a Bond be willed into existence between two people who were not only incompatible but unknown to each other, he would have laughed and slammed the door in their faces. But James was a reigning member of the Order, the men were his friends and all too aware of the influence Dumbledore had had on Alecson's rise to such an important position within the Ministry. If he couldn't trust them, he could trust no one.

The Veela sighed, sparing a pale glance for the window through which evening had been fast approaching as he had written up the Bond, the clouds heavy with rain. He pulled his coat from where it had been thrown this morning across the leather couch, tucking soft hair beneath the woollen hood as he picked up the strewn papers one-handed and dumped them on the table. Nothing of importance there beyond the enquiries of parents wishing to know if a creatural inheritance was a possibility in their young child; or love-blind couples wishing to forge a life together in the only way legally allowed for the Inhuman in Wizarding Britain, through a Bond written up by Alecson and Alecson alone.

"Should have stayed in America," The Veela scowled as the cabinet visible to his eye alone behind his desk began to glow a dull blue, alerting him that some child or young adult somehwhere in England had come into a full Inheritance, "would have been less drama to remain a guard for the Princess than it is here and that's saying something."

He threw a longing glance at the roaring fireplace, thoughts drifting to the handsome man he had waiting for him in the three storey house he had called home these past several years before he turned back to the cabinet and opened it with a glare. A delicate flick of his hand revealed the scroll upon which all the names of every Creature in England were written. There was a scrawl of old Magic as the list was extended by one, the scent foul against his nose like burning paper before the glow dimmed to nothing and he was able to see exactly what new soul he had been given the pleasure of minding.

_Harry James Potter, Lamia_

Alecson froze, his mouth parting in the barest of indrawn breaths as his fingers hovered over the single line. Well, that was unexpected to say the least. With a slant to his gaze, the Veela perched one pale finger over the writing, his eyes falling shut as the new creature's information was impressed upon his mind by the scroll, information that would be added to the long list of names that now existed in his mind as the Registrar; an eidetic gift he had been given with his position and the creature blood that coursed in his own veins. No human could have ever known with a touch of their finger that Harry Potter was a Lamia of submissive descent, the first in a long time to come into being in this small country. The boy held no lineage line as so many others would, nothing to link him to the Lamiae and Serpent Lords that had existed centuries ago throughout England and existed still in half-forgotten forests and self-made isolation; there existed nothing that would give rise to the suspicion that he may become a creature himself. The son of James Potter and Lily Evans had been completely human, save for a touch of the Serpent upon his mind that had been recognised by the Magic of the Bond and twisted to allow for an easier binding with the Malfoy Vampire.

Had the boy never bonded to a creature, he would have gone what remained of his life as a human; as it was, there was no reversing an Inheritance once gifted to a witch or wizard. The Serpent Seal had been something placed upon this youth at a very, very young age, one he had no doubt carried through his schooling and into adulthood. A temperamental seal, and one that would have eventually shattered and driven the boy to madness under the weight of his own thoughts and power. If anything, the Magic of the Bond had saved him, offered him a drastic physical alteration to stabilise both the fracture of the Seal and the invasion Malfoy had no doubt forged through his mind in an attempt to alleviate the pain such a block would have caused in the Vampire's psyche.

Alecson lifted his finger with a raise of one eyebrow, tapping it against pale pink lips with a soft hum. An extremely odd occurrence, though not something that was incredibly new to his mind nor unheard of. It was often that a Bond would force a Crreatural Inheritance in those with a low risk of becoming Inhuman were they to bind to another Creature. This was what Magic did, it weaved a simpler path for those capable of harnessing it. How the Serpent Seal had gotten on the Potter boy, however, was another question altogether. There existed no Creature aside from werewolf several centuries back in the Potter ancestral line. As far as Alecson could see, Harry Potter had been given a very strange, very rare gift indeed.

The man sighed before turning to make his way to the office of one James Potter, his lips quirked in a soft smile. "You're gonna be a pain the ass to babysit, I just know it."

###

"I'm going to kill my husband."

Lily Potter sat on the edge of the cushioned armchair seat, her elbows braced on her thighs as she peered over the top of her clasped knuckles at the two figures on the sitting room floor of Grimmauld place.

Severus stood by her side, his dark red eyes following the movements of the two young men as he held his hands clasped behind his back, a non-threat to Draco's more instinctual side that had risen with Harry's sudden... transformation. It had been all too easy to run Thomas and Gregory upstairs and force the Weasley boys back home when Draco had all but turned on them, hissing like some cornered wild cat. He sighed. "To be frank, Lily, zis may work in our favour. Clearly, the ability to become whatever it is 'e 'as become was within ze boy ze entire time, ze Bond 'as merely pushed it into a more physical manifestation."

"He shouldn't have bonded my baby without telling me!" Lily snapped only to draw a hiss from Draco. The redhead levelled a glare at the blonde strewn on his back, long limbs spread across the brown rug as he stared into her son's face where the younger boy refused to move from his back, his own altered eyes staring back at the Vampire as he thrilled a low sound from deep within his throat. Her son, even if he wasn't truly her son, he was hers and Draco had another thing coming if he thought he would take Harry from her now. She scowled at the young man she had taken such a liking to, only for Draco to snort dismissively and edge closer to Harry, his chest rumbling in something akin to a purr.

It hadn't been something she could have prepared herself for. The Bond was one thing, something she could understand and argue logically despite her hatred that James had asked it of Alecson without asking her. Despite her dislike of it and her anger at her husband, Lily could have dealt with a Bond, could have understood a Bond between human and Vampire, she had seen it before in Severus' court in France, rare though it was because of the pressure it put on the human's mind. But this? This was a Bond between a Dominant Creature and the Submissive he now stared at as though Harry were the love of his life.

It would have been endearing had that Submissive not only minutes ago been the very human Harry Potter. It would have been endearing had the boys known each other their whole lives. It would have been endearing had she not had to sit through her son's agonised screams and felt her heart tear as she foresaw the boy slipping through her grasp once more, cold and lifeless. Green eyes glanced up from where she had dropped them to her lap, blurred with tears and snapping open wide when they were met with a face not a foot from her own.

Harry made a sound low in his throat, a simple keen as he braced his hands upon her knees, drawing himself upward until Lily was forced back into the couch, the boy's heated, scaled arms wrapping around her neck, his strange eyes sliding shut as he rested silken black hair against his mother's chest. A sob broke from the woman's throat, Lily's arms coming around to clasp the young man who seemed so like a child on her lap. His back vibrated beneath her palm with the gentle sounds he made, confusion a simple thing to understand in his eyes when he twisted to look up at her, before turning a panicked glance towards Draco to make sure the Vampire was as he left him on the floor, staring up at the pair with blood red eyes.

"Oh, I don't know, baby," Lily sniffed, sliding her fingers through that dark hair once more only to find it softer beneath her touch, thicker than it had been only this morning. "I don't know what's happening or what you're going through, I only know your father's a bloody idiot."

Harry felt the woman's anger, stale and unwanted against his tongue as he breathed in through barely parted lips. She was frustrated, upset, confused, but her love for him was the sweetest scent beneath it all; unburdened and unconditional, it warmed something inside of him. His mother, her blood was his blood, the logic of him being from an alternate reality seemed completely irrelevant. He could smell that she was his mother, he could taste it. It was the reason Draco hummed with contentment and satisfaction in his mind, uncaring of the other Dominant Severus because that was Draco's Sire as surely as Lily was Harry's mother. These were things his body now knew unconditionally... But why? Why was he suddenly scenting the emotions and the magic around him as if it was the simplest of tasks? Why was he keen not to use his voice and why was Malfoy's every direct thought or flicker of adoration flitting through his mind as though something connected the two of them?

He held his arms before his eyes, eyes that viewed the room just as they had before, except for the trails of faded magic now imprinted on the very air that swam in various colours from the corner of his sight. The limbs he had grown accustomed to seeing littered with pale scars were decorated in curved tracks of emerald scales, fading to the palest green around his hands and roaming over the war marks left there. He had scales.

_What am I? _

_Beautiful._

Haarry made a sound akin to a snort as Draco's voice swam across his mind, his eyes snapping to the blonde only for the fire to suddenly roar to life in a dance of green and three men to step from the flames. The first two, Harry scented as Family, tainted by the touch of anxiousness and guilt but undeniably his Father and Godfather.

The third, however, had Harry rearing from his mother's grasp, his eyes narrowing to a slant and his hands coming forward to send the stranger flying against the far wall. A shriek left his lips when the man righted himself and sent a flare of fire in Harry's direction. With no thought, he sprang forward, his legs seeming to melt beneath him and carry him ever higher until he was eye to eye with the mysterious blonde dominant, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. Harry collided with the man, bringing them both to the floor and wrapping something cold and long and powerful around the Veela's torso.

"Harry, no!"

James watched his son turn to stare at him, the boy's eyes slanted in confusion and his lips drawing back down to cover the fangs that had sprung from seemingly nowhere. His pale arms fell to his sides, plucking at the shredding cloth that hung there from what remained of the boy's pants. With a choked cry, the Lamia stared down at the thing that held him upright and had wrapped itself around the unknown man. A serpent tail slid from the boy's torso, a forest green collision of scales that bled to pitch black as it moved from where the creature's legs had been to near twice the length of a grown man, coiling like a snake's own around the suddenly frozen Veela.

###

A/N: Ye would have had this last night if my laptop weren't being a GOBSHITE! -.- Anyhow.. Glad ye're enjoying it I'm still squinty about it but if people are enjoying it we'll go in this direction, feck it there aren't enough Harry as a snake fics anyway hahah Happy readings chickens ^^


End file.
